The newspaper reporters and TV cameras were out in force waiting for Schofield. Not on the edges of a red carpet for Phil, the evergreen silver-haired co-host of ITV’s This Morning, but his brother Timothy, 54, arriving at Bristol crown court to be sentenced to 12 years in jail for for sexually abusing a teenage boy.
From the TV star, there was nothing additional in response. The 61-year-old, whose near 40-year career in British television had won him almost national treasure status until recently, had taken his usual Friday off from hosting with his “sofa wife” Holly Willoughby.
Schofield had, in a statement following the police IT technician’s conviction at Exeter crown court last month, dramatically pledged that as far as he was concerned he “no longer had a brother”. Naturally, no mention had been made earlier this week of the case, as Schofield and Willoughby had traversed the usual daytime TV smörgåsbord of best supermarket picks, the must-have wedding wear of the season and agony aunt-style advice on dealing with flatulent neighbours.
There had nevertheless been plenty of signs of tension for those with their noses up against the screen, including the body language experts commissioned by some of the country’s biggest-selling newspapers to follow every excruciating minute of the morning programme. Tension not just in Schofield’s chat, usually so fluid and authentic, and the gentle creases of his lightly tanned features, but in all his interactions with Willoughby, 42.
For, if anyone in Britain was not yet aware that this close and longstanding friendship had hit trouble, this week’s prime minister’s questions in the House of Commons will have surely put that right.
“We all know what’s going on with her and her leader,” Oliver Dowden, the recently promoted deputy prime minister, standing in for Rishi Sunak who is abroad, had squawked on Wednesday at his Labour counterpart, Angela Rayner. “It’s all lovey-dovey on the surface, they turn it on for the cameras, but as soon as they’re off, it’s a different story. They’re at each other’s throats. They are the Phil and Holly of British politics.”
But what has gone wrong? The talk is that terms are so difficult between the two that Schofield may have to leave the show and take his place among the long list of television luminaries who have fallen foul of the tendency of the breakfast format to end in tears. This fate most famously befell Frank Bough and Selina Scott’s partnership, partly due to the senior man’s penchant for repeatedly telling his co-host about the size of his penis when the camera stopped rolling.
Unlike in that case, the friendship between Schofield and Willoughby has been genuine, however. It was Willoughby, with whom Schofield has shared family holidays, whom the TV veteran had picked out above all for thanks when he came out as gay in 2020, describing her as “so kind and wise – and who has hugged me as I sobbed on her shoulder”.
Insiders say that to understand the froideur now one must go back to the death of the queen – and “Queuegate”. The suggestion that Phil and Holly had jumped ahead of the public, and David Beckham, to pay their respects in Westminster Hall, had ushered in a deadly transition whereby viewers were no longer laughing with the breakfast duo as they giggled over the absurdities of life, but laughing very much at them. It was damaging to the brand and put them on edge. Then, the news about Schofield’s brother broke. It is reported that Willoughby was blindsided by it. She did not know of the trial until Schofield asked for time off. Both of their publicists declined to comment when approached by the Guardian.
When the trial did start, the jury heard that Timothy had confided in his aghast brother in September 2021 that he had watched pornography with a boy who was aged over 16. The criminality came to light two months later in November 2021 after the depressed victim spoke to two counsellors and disclosed that he had been underage.
It would be understandable for Willoughby to be concerned about how the detail of the trial might tarnish, however unfairly, the Phil and Holly brand. Then, to rub salt in the wounds, there was a statement that again Willoughby was said to have felt came out of the blue, in which Schofield this week in the Sun emphasised both his closeness to his co-star and how he had been a support to her during difficult times.
“Holly has always been there for me, through thick and thin”, he wrote. “And I’ve been there for her. The last few weeks haven’t been easy for either of us.” The message was clear: we are a team who have always had each other’s backs in the past. Willoughby put out her own statement of sorts. “This week, we are graced with a magnificent new moon, heralding a period of rejuvenation,” she wrote in a newsletter for subscribers of her wellbeing brand Wylde Moon. It was scrutinised in some quarters with all the seriousness of Kremlinologists looking for deeper meaning in arcane Soviet decrees. The former This Morning presenter Eamonn Holmes, now over on GB News, was willing to call it: “The public surely have sussed that there’s no chemistry, that there’s a broken fit between the two of them.”
Mark Borkowski, the PR agent who represented Noel Edmonds at the point at which his hit show Noel’s House Party was in a death spiral, said he sensed that a “storm in the teacup” was being further stirred by those acting in the interests of those who might wish to replace them – and that this might well be how it ends. “I think ITV will be protecting the format, they will be very frustrated by it,” Borkowski said. “Every crisis is an opportunity for a TV company to rethink and there will be plenty of people who might step into their shoes.”
