After Queen Elizabeth II’s death, the nation came together in mourning and grief, with many determined to achieve one singular goal: to get to the front of The Queue and pay the respects to her lying in state. But this comradery also spawned a common enemy: anyone who tried to skip The Queue.
Last week, a video emerged on TikTok of Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield - formally the nation’s This Morning co-host sweethearts - apparently walking past thousands of members of the public who’d been waiting to get into Westminster Hall for up to 14 hours.
The reaction has been one of seismic fury—there’s now a petition with over 37,000 signatures demanding the pair be axed from their presenter roles on This Morning for ‘queue jumping’. Under Holly’s Instagram posts of her family and across hundreds of Twitter timelines, endless aggressive comments and criticisms have been left since the story emerged.
It’s understandable that those who gave their time and energy to The Queue are angry at Holly and Phil. Although they and This Morning have maintained they were there ‘in a professional capacity as part of the world’s media to report on the event’ many have pointed out Holly and Phil ‘aren’t news channel anchors’ and that their fellow ITV morning show host Susanna Reid didn’t capitalise on a ‘press privilege’ but queued for seven hours with her 81-year-old mother.
Yet not even a week into the backlash and the hatred and trolling is seemingly taking a physical and emotional toll on Holly Willoughby. ‘Holly looks like she’s been crying all night,’ wrote one viewer after Wednesday’s This Morning episode. ‘They both look on the verge of tears,’ added another. ‘Holly has never been so quiet,’ observed a third concerned fan.
Holly and Phil getting press access to Westminster Hallcompletely misunderstood the public mood—as did This Morning’s Spin To Win household bills competition days before. But This Morning isn’t made in a vacuum. There’s a team of researchers and producers who all play a part in the segments the show produces. To streamline hatred towards two people whose faces are unavoidably linked to the mistakes the show makes is entirely misdirected.
According to numerous insider reports to various tabloids, Holly and Phil have been left ‘devastated’ by the public’s reaction. And Holly has allegedly been so upset by the anger against her that she’s been unable to look at social media. Earlier this week, it was suggested she came close to deleting Instagram altogether thanks to the endless unkind messages in her DMs.
While it’s easy to diminish the significance of a public figure wanting to delete social media, The desire to go off the digital grid can essentially be translated as a worrying need to disappear. Ahead of her death in February 2020, Caroline Flack took extended breaks from Instagram and regularly asked her friends of the endless negative comments: ‘Why are people so mean to me?’
As viewers, we’re allowed to be outraged. Ofcom complaints often hit headlines for the sheer number of audience members taking the time to complain. But there’s a tangible difference between holding press and presenters in positions of power to account and relentlessly bullying someone over an action you don’t agree with.