Amanda Holden has denied a video was intended to be a dig at This Morning host Holly Willoughby. The Britan’s Got Talent presenter posted up the footage which was widely taken by celebrity watchers to be satirising the infamous Holly statement on This Morning on Monday.
Appearing in white dress on the ITV show tanned Holly had asked viewers “Are you OK?” before giving her statement about the departure of co-host Phillip Schofield who had dramatically left the show. Afterwards Amanda, also wearing a white dress and looking very tanned asked her social media followers: “Are you OK?”
Amanda then went on to repeat the ‘Are you OK?’ gag on Heart radio. A spokesman for Amanda has now said: “Amanda has always made it clear in the past she has no issues with Holly. Today’s video has been taken completely out of context.”
Meanwhile Holly Willoughby has returned to social media for the first time since Phillip Schofield’s explosive departure from This Morning. The TV presenter, who was absent from the ITV morning show during the furore, returned to screens on Monday but has not shared a permanent post on her personal Instagram account since May 18.
On Tuesday she shared a photo of herself in the dress she will wear for the live broadcast, which she will host with Josie Gibson. Sporting a floral Ghost dress and nude high heeled sandals, Willoughby can be seen smiling for the camera.
She captioned the post: “Morning Tuesday… see you on @thismorning at 10am with @josiegibson85… the wonderful @sarah.beeny joins us today to talk about her incredibly important and personal documentary.”
Willoughby’s return to the show on Monday was highly anticipated and marked her first on-screen appearance since Schofield left ITV following his revelation of an affair with a younger male colleague.
The episode was watched by an average of 839,000 viewers, the highest daily average for the show since the coronation bank holiday on May 8. It is also above the three-month average of 703,000.
The peak audience for Monday’s show – the highest number of viewers watching at any one time – was 1.6 million, nearly double the average for the whole programme.
During interviews last week, Schofield told the Sun and the BBC that Willoughby did not know about the “unwise, but not illegal” relationship, and has apologised for lying to her. Seated next to Gibson, she said: “Firstly, are you OK? I hope so. It feels very strange indeed sitting here without Phil. And I imagine that you might have been feeling a lot like I have – shaken, troubled, let down, worried for the wellbeing of people on all sides of what’s been going on, and full of questions.”
She continued: “You, me and all of us at This Morning gave our love and support to someone who was not telling the truth, who acted in a way that they themselves felt that they had to resign from ITV, and step down from a career that they loved. That is a lot to process.
“And it’s equally hard to see the toll that it’s taken on their own mental health. I think what unites us all now is a desire to heal, for the health and wellbeing of everyone.”
