This Morning viewers waiting with baited breath for Holly Willoughby's link with Ruth Langsford in the Loose Women studio might have been initially disappointed by the lack of drama in their stretched grins on Monday afternoon.
Yet the beneath-surface-level chilliness between the former co-stars was plain to see through their telling gestures, body language expert Judi James tells the Mirror.
Following her now-infamous "are you OK?" statement addressing the Phillip Schofield scandal, Holly presented the ITV show alongside Josie Gibson.
But when it got to 12pm, it was time to directly speak to Loose Women's host for the afternoon - who awkwardly happened to be Ruth.
It comes after Ruth's husband Eamonn made a series of blistering comments towards Holly, accusing her of "knowing the truth" and that she "stabbed Phil in the back".
Despite Ruth and Holly's sunny demeanours, their true feelings were just lurking beneath the surface, suggests Judi...
You’d need to be finely tuned to the usual saccharine-smile exchanges on This Morning to forensically pick apart this hand-over moment between Holly, Josie and Ruth, but behind those professional surface smiles lurked some major clues of chill between Holly and Ruth.
The job of the normal ‘excited friends’ body language rituals was delegated to Holly’s on screen minder/ partner Josie as the split screens went up. Josie did the expected body-scrunching and nose-wrinkling greeting that suggests delight at the sight of Ruth’s face.
Holly though took the signals down several notches, with a polite bounce in her seat and a slightly pursed smile, with her chin raised in a gesture of a hint of defiance.
Josie did the obligatory baby wave to Ruth but instead of mirroring as we tend to do when greeting people as a duo, Holly kept her torso static.
Ruth might have made some gesture to share the sense of ‘survivor love’ that had been displayed by Josie and Holly during their show.
There might have been some recognition or suggestion of support for Holly, like an empty embrace arm gesture or a head cock with an empathetic facial expression, but Ruth does tend to opt for honesty and her technique was like a masterclass in misdirection. She blew kisses at the screen but instead of Holly they were aimed at Adam Lambert, Holly’s guest.
There was a nod from Holly and then just a slight micro-gesture from Ruth as, instead of sitting with a big smile on her face until the cameras had gone off, allowed it to begin to fade slightly while her face was still on screen.
