Phillip Schofield's shock exit from This Morning has been the subject of much debate in recent days, with his fellow ITV stars either sharing their support for him, or making brutal digs at the demise in his long-running daytime TV career.
The TV presenter, 61, who fronted This Morning for over twenty years, announced he was leaving the show 'with immediate effect' after endless rumours of a bitter feud between him and his co-host of 13 years, Holly Willoughby.
While his sudden exit came as a shock to many, it seems that several other ITV stars were not as surprised at the outcome, with Piers Morgan speaking in favour of Phil, admitting that he feels much sympathy for the former host of the iconic ITV programme.
Piers, 58, can relate to the situation which Phillip finds himself in now because he went through the same ordeal with ITV bosses.
Piers Morgan - Good Morning Britain
In March 2021, Piers stormed off the set of Good Morning Britain during a heated debate about Meghan Markle - a public figure who he has publicly berated for several years.
Days after he furiously stormed out of the Good Morning Britain studio, Piers dramatically quit the show after thousands of viewers complained about his concerning remarks about the Duchess of Sussex, following her televised and highly controversial interview with Oprah Winfrey about the royal family.
Piers quit the show after six long years beside his co-host alongside Susanna Reid.
At the time, ITV released a brief statement, confirming that TV presenter would not be making a return to the show.
"Following discussions with ITV, Piers Morgan has decided now is the time to leave Good Morning Britain. ITV has accepted this decision and has nothing further to add," the statement read.
And following Phillip's decision to step down from his long-running role on This Morning, Piers has seen that history is repeating itself as he admitted that he felt much sympathy for Phillip - especially given the fact that he wasn't honoured with an emotional send-off despite fronting the show for 21 long years.
Addressing the drama, Piers called out the 'savages' who are working in ITV.
Appearing on Times Radio, TalkTV host Piers said: “Anyone who thinks daytime telly is full of smiley, nicey, happy clappy people; I think they are beginning to realise it is infested by a pack of savages.
“There is nothing more ruthless than the way talent, as we so laughably get called in TV, get treated when the plug gets pulled.”
Although Piers and Phillip endured a twenty year feud, the pair put their drama to bed in recent years, with Piers being one of the loudest voices who have publicly supported the fallen ITV star in recent days.
However, Piers and Phillip are not the only daytime TV stars who have been dramatically dropped by the broadcaster.
Carol McGiffin - Loose Women
In recent weeks, Loose Women Carol McGiffin has revealed that she felt let down by ITV when she was forced to step down from her long-running role as a panellist on the daytime TV show.
Carol, 63, hadn't been seen on the panel for several weeks, and avid Loose Women viewers began to question her whereabouts given that she appeared to have vanished out of nowhere.
After much speculation, the Loose Women star finally broke her silence earlier this month, explaining that she had been forced to 'step away' from the show after allegedly being asked to sign a contract which was 'totally unjust and unworkable' for her.
Carol said her time on the show came to an end because the contract was 'too unjust' for her to agree to.
"The problem was, ITV were insisting, for the first time since I went back in 2018, that if I wanted to carry on doing the show, I would have to sign a contract that was totally unjust and unworkable for me, so I had to say ‘no thanks,’” she wrote in Best magazine.
"No one in their right mind would have signed that contract," she added. "And I can’t see a way back from it."
Since leaving Loose Women, Carol has been incredibly vocal about all the elements of the show which she didn't agree with and in a recent interview on GB News, the former panellist took a brutal swipe at her former Loose Women co-stars.
The TV star said she no longer watches the show and claimed it’s become too 'woke' for her.
While speaking to host Dan Wootton, Carol said: "Well put it this way, reading all the comments from the article at the weekend there are a lot of people who think the programme has gone very, very woke."
Dan replied: "I feel that as a viewer. I don’t watch any more." Carol then admitted: "Well, neither do I. The whole of mainstream media is very, very woke."
"You just don’t have to keep forcing this stuff down people's throats, it’s not just ITV, the BBC is probably worse actually – and saying that, Channel 4 is probably the worst out of all of them. It’s not a place where I feel I fit in," she added.
"And, even though, you should be having the debates and seeing a difference in opinion, in the typical woke ideals, you don't really get it anymore you're not allowed to say it and if you do, you either get censored or you get cancelled as many people have learnt to their cost."
She added of ITV: "They come back and say we support free speech but I can't see it, I can't really see it – from where I'm sitting anyway."
Carol then suggested: "I'm not sure whether or not that was the reason I was given the contract I was given."
Since stepping down from the ITV show, Carol has been shown support by her former co-stars, Denise Welch and Brenda Edwards.
Katie Price - Loose Women
Another star to face the wrath of ITV bosses was former glamour Katie Price, who was axed from her post on the Loose Women panel in 2018.
Katie, 44, was a regular on the panel show alongside long-running stars including Coleen Nolan, Ruth Langsford, and Linda Robson.
The mum-of-five appeared on the show from 2015 to 2018, but the star was reportedly dropped from the ITV show after her 'life spiralled out of control'.
It was a deeply troubling time for Katie following her split from husband Kieran Hayler - after she discovered that he was cheating on her with their children's nanny - with her pals claiming that she had turned to cocaine to cope with the heartbreak.
Katie became suddenly absent from the show, and after a couple of months, viewers began to question if she would ever return to the panel show.
At the time, a TV insider told The Sun that Katie had been dropped by ITV due to the rumours circulating that she was dabbling in drugs to deal with the breakdown of her marriage.
"Katie hasn't been a Loose Women panellist since January but still appeared as a guest this summer," the source said.
"Bosses really like Katie – she was a huge hit with viewers and there’s a lot of sympathy for her as they can see she’s struggling to cope with her split from Kieran and mum’s terminal illness.
"But they won’t have her back while she’s in this mess. It’s a family show and viewers have been put off by her ever since her life spiralled out of control."
Eamonn Holmes - This Morning
Back in 2020, Eamonn Holmes was sensationally dropped from This Morning after a 14-year reign on the ITV show alongside his wife, Ruth Langsford.
While Ruth still had her post on the Loose Women panel, Eamonn, 63, was left high and dry by ITV bosses when they decided the show needed a major shake-up with two brand-new presenters.
Eamonn and Ruth famously presented the Friday show, and would fill in for main hosts, Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby during the holidays.
However, their time on the show came to an abrupt end in 2020 when they were replaced by Alison Hammond and Dermot O'Leary.
The husband and wife duo, who presented the Friday show together since 2006, were said to be 'furious and upset' over the move.
“Eamonn is pretty furious and everyone feels for him and Ruth, they are well liked on the team, but sometimes tough decisions have to be made," an insider said at the time.
Before his exit, Eamonn had confided in recent weeks that he feared being too 'pale, stale and male' for the award-winning ITV show, which had drawn criticism for not having enough diversity among the presenters.
The Northern Irish star had also left bosses fuming in 2019 when he was rapped by Ofcom for 'ill-judged' comments regarding the conspiracy theories surrounding 5G masts spreading coronavirus.
The watchdog said his remarks, in which he said that mainstream media should not automatically slap down such claims, 'risked undermining viewers' trust in advice from public authorities and scientific evidence'.
Although Eamonn went through the same ordeal with This Morning bosses that his former co-star Phillip now finds himself in, Eamonn has shown no sympathy for Phil, and has insisted that the presenter should have been given the axe years ago.
In January 2022, Eamonn joined GB News while Ruth stayed at ITV.
After he left, it was claimed that Phil didn't reach out to Eamonn to see how he was doing.
Lifting the lid on Phil's radio silence, a source revealed that although the pair 'never saw eye to eye', his lack of contact had come as quite a surprise given the fact he and Eamonn worked alongside one another for so many years.
The insider revealed: "It’s been quite publicised that he and Phillip didn’t really see eye to eye. Phillip hasn’t contacted Eamonn since leaving This Morning, which is a bit of a shame.
"Eamonn felt like Phillip didn’t really like him," they told OK! Magazine.
Rylan Clark - This Morning
Rylan Clark quit This Morning after ITV bosses axed his good friends Eamonn and Ruth from the hit day time show.
At the time, the former Celebrity Big Brother winner and X-Factor star Rylan, 34, said he was 'gutted' to see show favourites Eamonn and Ruth axed and felt disheartened by their sudden exit.
After stepping down from his role, Rylan explained: "I had a lovely time there and learnt a lot when it came down to working live and going on to host the show eventually.
“I took a step back and I think it was the right decision for me to get out of that bubble of not really pushing myself.
“I loved This Morning, but now it’s nice to sit and watch it from home instead.”
Earlier this month, Rylan added fuel to the already burning fire that he was in a feud with a fellow TV presenter - with many pointing fingers towards Phillip Schofield.
Given Rylan's close relationship with Eamonn and Ruth, even calling them his 'mum and dad', Rylan has remained silent amid Phillip's departure from This Morning, but when the rumours were circulating about bad blood between Phillip and Holly, Rylan revealed that there is a lot of nastiness behind the scenes at ITV.
Rylan, who has hosted huge shows including Big Brother's Bit On The Side, Strictly's It Takes Two, The Xtra Factor, as well as This Morning, shared some insight into his life as a TV presenter in the new interview, admitting that he can 'see through' people very clearly now.
After over a decade in showbiz, Rylan observed: "People can see through it all now. People can see who are the real ones and can very much see who isn't.
"I've been in this industry for nearly 11 years, and all I've ever been is nice and polite to people."
The TV star told Waitrose and Partners Weekend: "And that's starting to pay off for me now, because there are people in this industry who aren't like that. They think they're something special. And the walls are starting to fall."
In another recent interview, Rylan detailed how he feels as though a number of long-running TV presenter's treats the production runners like 'rubbish'.
In one particular instance, Rylan overhead a well-known TV star shouting at a runner after they made them the wrong hot drink.
After witnessing the uncomfortable situation, Rylan said he felt furious for the runner, and immediately stepped in to slam the mystery TV presenter for their appalling behaviour towards the staff member.
"I told them to f**k off and then I went and had a ciggy with the runner," Rylan shared.
Saira Khan - Loose Women
TV personality Saira Khan claimed she quit Loose Women after ITV bosses asked her to join OnlyFans.
The TV presenter, 52, was a regular panellist on the programme for five years before she departed in January 2021.
At the time, Saira claimed she made the difficult decision after the coronavirus pandemic sparked her to reassess her priorities.
In her column with the Mirror, Saira explained the pandemic 'certainly made me assess my priorities, values and how I want to move forward with my life'.
However, almost a year later, in October 2022, Saira alleged that she left the show ‘quietly’ after being approached by bosses to join the content subscription service OnlyFans.
The former Loose Women star insisted that she found the baffling request as ‘offensive’ and ‘disgusting’.
At the time, she said of the situation: "They asked me to go undercover and open an OnlyFans account for an investigative story. I had no idea what that even meant – it was asked by a junior producer who was sent running after me just as I was leaving to go home."
"To say I was shocked was an understatement," Saira added. "I could see she herself was mortified to ask me. I replied, ‘You’re asking an Asian woman who has a husband and kids and comes from a Muslim family to open an OnlyFans account?’
However, a spokesperson for Loose Women denied the claims. They said: "We strongly refute all of these claims. Duty of care is of paramount importance for all of our panellists. Saira left the panel almost two years ago and we wish her well.”
Saira also confessed the social media abuse made her time on Loose Women ‘very toxic’.
After leaving the show, Saira revealed the panellists aren't as friendly as they appear on screen.
When asked who out of the Loose Women panel she'd stay friends with, Saira said: "You make friends with some people, you tolerate some people, and some people you just have to do the job with.
"I'm not going to go into the nitty gritty there now. There are some friends, people I will be close to because we get each other.
"And there are some I really don't miss at all, who I was just like, 'I just have to tolerate you to do the job.'"
Jamelia - Loose Women
Singing sensation Jamelia Niela Davis was reportedly axed from Loose Women back in 2016 after her comments about plus size fashion caused widespread outrage among ITV viewers.
The hit-maker's comments sparked fury during a heated discussion about overweight teenagers, with Jamelia, 42, insisting she does not believe shops should facilitate an unhealthy lifestyle and should not stock larger sizes.
"I don’t believe stores should stock clothes below or above a certain weight. They should be made to feel uncomfortable when they go in and can’t find a size," she said on the show.
Immediately, Jamelia was hit with intense backlash from furious Loose Women viewers who demanded answers and an apology - however, the singer was not willing to retract her statement, and instead became defensive about the abuse she was receiving.
After being hit with the accusations of body shaming Jamelia tweeted: "Never waste your time trying to explain, to people committed to misunderstanding you."
However, after re-thinking her statement and the tweet that followed, Jamelia agreed to appear on Good Morning Britain the following day to explain herself.
At the time, she said: "Knowing that I made people question themselves and their choices really did upset me and all I can do is apologise for that but I do stand by what I said."
Despite appearing on the show to give a public apology, it wasn't enough for ITV bosses who felt it was the 'final straw'.
A source told The Sun: "The show is often close to the bone but those comments were the final straw."
A spokesperson said at the time: "Jamelia is currently working on other projects for ITV Daytime including some hair and beauty features for This Morning."
The Mirror has reached out to an ITV spokesperson for comment.
