Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield are used to being hailed from as national treasures.
When they're not collapsing into fits of giggles live on TV, the sunshine-and-sass double act also do a useful line in holding the great and the good to account and on ITV's This Morning. Remember that time Holly grilled Boris Johnson about his hurtful comments about single mums? Or when Phil laid into Jeremy Corbyn about Labour's anti-semitism scandal?
Getting into the thick of stories, stripping them back and bringing them home as emotional packages to the viewing public is, pretty much, their job — and, usually, we all love it.
In recent days, the halo seemed to slip. The hosts of the hit daytime show had to take to the air to insist they would 'never jump a queue' after they were criticised for not waiting in line to see the Queen lying in state.
The pair were targeted on social media after they appeared inside Westminster Hall on Friday while members of the public queued for over 24 hours to file past the coffin.
However, ITV bosses said that Willoughby and Schofield had attended as accredited journalists to film part of a segment for This Morning.
Speaking on yesterday’s show, Holly explained further: 'Like hundreds of accredited broadcasters and journalists we were given official permission to access the hall.
'It was strictly for the purpose of reporting on the event for millions of people in the UK who have not been able to visit Westminster in person. The rules were that we would be quickly escorted around the edges to a platform at the back. In contrast, those paying respect walked along a carpeted area beside the coffin and were given time to pause.'
Holly, 41, added that none of the broadcasters and journalists in the hall 'took anyone’s place in the queue' and that no one filed past the Queen. 'However, we realise that it may have looked like something else and therefore totally understand the reaction. Please know that we would never jump a queue.'
Some fans still weren't happy. On Twitter, one user wrote: 'Well I called it wrong. I expected floods of tears and a grovelling apology plus much talk of how devastated Holly and Phil are but apparently they just decided to take another giant dump on everyone instead and stuck two fingers up'. Another added: 'Like Boris Johnson who didn’t realise he was at a party.'
After a fortnight in which the only news has been the end of the second Elizabethan era, a slow, formal, frozen time of 24/7 rolling coverage of national mourning, have we truly tumbled back in time to a point where even those trying to respect the sanctity of our state's traditions are hung out to dry in the digital town square and punished?
The nation has done itself proud by observing two weeks of national mourning. This country is home to royalists and republicans, yet, for two weeks, managed to get through a trying, testing and frankly unprecedented time of old-fashioned, funereal pomp. We showed we can do sombre. We showed we can do sensible. We showed we can do 20 hours in a queue, for God's sake.
Phil and Holly committed the age-old clanger of becoming the news, not making it. Yet they were, rightly or wrongly, simply trying to personalise the biggest story of the moment in the manner that has made them household names.
To err is human. To complain is too. To forgive? Perhaps it's time we give it a shot. At a time when a national cost of living crisis is biting, millions are skipping meals to stay afloat and a winter recession is drawing in, outrage is our democratic right. Just let's make sure we're not pouring it on the wrong bonfire.