Linda Robson has addressed claims she is feuding with Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield after they scooped best daytime TV show at the National Television Awards.
On the night, viewers watching at home commented on how Robson appeared to not applaud the This Morning team as they beat Loose Women to take home the honour.
Then, the day after the ceremony, fans noticed how Dame Kelly Holmes admitted that she “wasn’t very good” at hiding her disappointment at missing out on an award, while Robson just commented on how much fun she and her co-stars had getting dressed up for the event.
Now a week on, the Birds of a Feather star weighed in on speculation that she refused to clap for the This Morning duo, insisting that there is “no issue” between herself and her ITV colleagues.
She told the Sun: “There is no issue between me, Holly and Phil. We just showed that we were disappointed that we lost, and we are allowed to be disappointed.
“It wasn’t that we didn’t clap, we were just going ‘oh no, not again, we haven’t won this year’. It wasn’t deliberately not clapping them; we were just sad for us.
“… There is no feud at all, we see them all the time, we’re ITV, we all work in the same studio.”
The furore comes after Schofield and Willoughy were booed by audience members at the National Television Awards last Thursday night.
The pair have faced a difficult few weeks after they denied accusations that they skipped the queue to see the Queen lying in state last month.
However, Schofield ignored the boos and said onstage that the award meant “so much” to him and Willoughby, “especially this year”.
He added: “Please don’t think we ever get complacent and please don’t think we ever take it for granted. This means so much to us every year, especially this year. We have the best boss.”
Willoughby added: “This Morning has a very special relationship with you, you make our show for us, you really do.
“All these guys on the stage here, Alison [Hammond] and Dermot [O’Leary], Rochelle [Humes], and Vernon [Kay], Josie [Gibson] ... Thank you for all your support.”
During the queue row, ITV had stood by the hosts, stating: “They did not jump the queue, have VIP access or file past the Queen lying in state, but instead were there in a professional capacity as part of the world’s media to report on the event.”
The pair has been targeted so virulently on social media that many stars felt a need to come to their defence.
Graham Norton, who admitted he turned down a “queue-jump ticket” to see the Queen’s lying-in-state, said the pair “did nothing wrong”.
And the woman who created an online petition calling for Holly and Phil to be sacked said last month that she was stepping back from the cause after it topped 75,000 signatures, because it was “kind of destroying me”.
