Fern Britton shares update on Phillip Schofield friendship
At the end of May long-time ITV star Schofield, 62, resigned from the broadcaster after admitting to lying about an ‘unwise but not illegal’ affair with a much younger colleague.
The revelations came as former This Morning hosts, employees and guests spoke about their experience with the ‘toxic environment’ on set, with many taking aim at Schofield himself.
It’s not been any secret that he and Fern, who previously hosted the show together from 2002 until 2009, had a massive falling out.
But despite the recent events, Fern, 65, has now revealed that her and Schofield haven’t spoken at all.
‘We were involved in the show and mates at the time, but we don’t really [speak anymore],’ she told Good Housekeeping.
She added: ‘My time at This Morning was marvellous and I adored the 10 years I was there.’
Presenting the programme alongside Phillip for eight years, Fern left abruptly in 2009 and it was later revealed there had been some tension brewing between the two for some time.
In his biography, Life is What You Make It, Phillip claimed their fallout had stemmed from an argument over the content of a This Morning episode.
He wrote that ‘for whatever reason’, that was ‘the point’ where Fern decided she didn’t want to work on the show any longer.
Around the same time, Fern revealed that she left after being ‘treated pretty poorly’.
‘Something happened and I thought, “That’s it really”, and I walked away and resigned,’ she recalled.
‘And after a while I just thought, “Sod it”,’ she told the Ray D’Arcy Show in 2020.
While Phillip said he tried to ‘make things right’ and that he missed Fern ‘deeply’, they later had a somewhat sour social media interaction after she claimed to not have been invited when the show received a Bafta for 30 years on screen.
He replied on Twitter: ‘Odd really, because she was invited and declined #memoryloss we’d have loved her to be there. A vital and much-loved part of the show.’
When the news of Schofield being embroiled in a fallout with co-host Holly Willoughby, 42, came out, Fern seemed to weigh in by sharing on Twitter that she’d had a ‘catch up’ with ‘old pal’ Eamonn Holmes, who had his own public feud with Schofield too.
This Morning airs weekdays from 10am on ITV1.
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MORE : ITV investigation into Phillip Schofield’s departure will ‘take months to complete’
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