‘Could have cost us our jobs’ Eamonn Holmes reflects on ‘deadly serious’ feud with co-star
Fiery presenter Eamonn Holmes recalled a feud with Anthea Turner which saw him splashed across the headlines and fearing that both might lose their careers. The former This Morning star revealed all in a recent interview.
“I was on the front pages of the papers because of a falling-out I had with Anthea Turner – I called her ‘Princess Tippy Toes’,” Eamonn admitted.
“It’s laughable now, but at the time it was deadly serious for both of us.
“It could have cost both of us our jobs, but the station probably secretly relished the publicity,” he told The Telegraph.
He added that he and Anthea quickly made up and are now good friends – but that didn’t happen before the war of words had descended into a scandal.
READ NOW: Meghan Markle’s ‘main issue’ pointed out by Karren Brady
The pair first came to blows while they were hosting GMTV together for two years in the mid 1990s.
Anthea believed she had been the victim of sexist stereotypes for being too “ambitious” – a trait she claimed men would never be accused of in a derogatory way.
“If I said [I was ambitious], I was made out to be a ruthless person who would walk over anybody to get where I wanted,” she stated to The Sun.
“It would be said that I was hormonal, or I was stamping my feet.”
She added: “Yet if [a man is] ambitious, we think, ‘What a guy’.
“You’d never hear anyone say that about Eamonn or Phillip Schofield. No, they’re just doing their job.”
Anthea quit the show in 1996 after a spat with her co-star Eamonn, which had led him to describe her in subsequent interviews as “demanding”.
However, despite the tension at that time, they have now healed their rift.
After Anthea quit GMTV, she was replaced by Fiona Phillips, but went on to appear on numerous other shows, including Hell’s Kitchen and Celebrity Big Brother.
In recent years, she and Eamonn had an emotional televised reunion, in which he presented her with a birthday cake and enveloped her in a hug.
Anthea had jokingly quipped during the 2018 episode of This Morning, in front of his real-life wife Ruth Langsford, that she and Eamonn had once been “on-screen husband and wife”.
“You are an ex of mine and we’re on good terms,” he commented to her during the show, adding: “Some people think we hate each other!”
For all the latest Entertainment News Click Here
For the latest news and updates, follow us on Google News.
