Holly Willoughby has been facing extreme backlash since Phillip Schofield confirmed his affair with a younger male colleague at ITV. Releasing a statement to the Daily Mail on Friday last week, Schofield admitted he ‘met the man when he was a teenager and was asked to help him to get into television’, but said the relationship was not illegal, rather ‘unwise’.
‘I did have a consensual on-off relationship with a younger male colleague at This Morning,’ Schofield said. ‘Contrary to speculation, whilst I met the man when he was a teenager and was asked to help him to get into television, it was only after he started to work on the show that it became more than just a friendship. That relationship was unwise, but not illegal. It is now over.’
The former This Morning presenter went on to say that he ‘lied’ to his employers at ITV, his colleagues, and friends, as well as his agents and family about the affair. Holly Willoughby, who presented This Morning together with Phillip for 14 years, has too stated that she did not know about the affair.
‘When reports of this relationship first surfaced, I asked Phil directly if this was true and was told it was not,’ she said in a statement. ‘It's been very hurtful to now find out that this was a lie.’
ITV also responded on Saturday by saying it had investigated rumours of a relationship between Schofield and a younger employee in 2020 - but that both had ‘repeatedly denied’ it. And yet, the public continue to question whether Holly knew about the affair, with her Instagram comment section filled with followers calling her out.
‘How could you not possibly be aware something very, very dodgy was going on?’ one person asked. ‘Step down like Phil as you both knew what was going on the whole time!’ another added.
This morning, the situation escalated even further when Kim Woodburn called for Willoughby to be fired from ITV, saying 'She aided and abetted him to take a big salary, get shot of that little b*tch. Wimpy, wimpy little woman, she will not be missed'.
Willoughby is yet to respond to Woodburn’s call for her removal, but the video has since gone viral online with people questioning how far, if at all, Willoughby should be held accountable for her male colleagues’ actions. It comes after Eamonn Holmes also claimed Willoughby is ‘as false as Schofield’ while presenting on GB news.
‘People shouldn’t be blaming Holly for Phillips situation, it isn’t her fault,’ one person said in her defence. ‘Talk about cancel culture,’ another added on her Instagram. ‘What is wrong with some of you, she’s a human being for goodness’s sake, stop treating her like there’s no one at the other end of this or any other social media account.’
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