Why is the rift between Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield so diverting? Maybe you don’t find it so. Maybe current affairs interest you in direct proportion to their importance. If so, you’re lucky. For most of us, the dry detail and/or savage tragedy of momentous issues drive our minds towards triviality. I have never grasped what’s happening in Syria or why to be scared about China, so this week I’ve been digging into what’s going on with Holly and Phil.
This is not what the two people involved want. That’s one thing they would still agree on. These are not circumstances where those at the centre of a furore are feeding off it and enjoying it, like Piers Morgan or Ryanair. Having resigned as co-presenter of This Morning (and subsequently from ITV), Schofield will want the story to go away. The things he has come to prominence saying on television are too bland to be noticed if the viewers are all speculating on whether he’s a nightmare to work with. Similarly, as she continues on the show, Willoughby’s ability to seem sympathetic and relatable for two and a half hours every morning will be compromised by a lingering aura of anger and ruthlessness.
They want this to stop. ITV wants this to stop. Hence the disingenuous expressions of goodwill amid the wreckage. Schofield stepping down saying “I want to do what I can to protect the show that I love”; Willoughby thanking him “for all of his knowledge, his experience and his humour”, adding “the sofa won’t feel the same without him”; and, on the programme itself, from which Willoughby is also currently absent, Alison Hammond and Dermot O’Leary paying tribute in such shaken and sombre tones that, had they not tremulously wished him “all the best for the future”, you’d think he’d died.
This is what makes the story so diverting. The contrast between the evident reality and the hastily applied coat of bullshit. They are lying to us and we can tell. That makes us feel powerful and them look foolish. And it’s a much better story than the one they’ve been feeding us for years.
Let’s look at that story. It was that Phil and Holly were inseparable and devoted buddies. The last we heard of it was earlier in the month when, in the hope of quelling the storm of gossip, Schofield released a statement saying: “Holly is my rock. We’re the best of friends… Holly has always been there for me, through thick and thin. And I’ve been there for her.”
“Sources” were quick to say that Willoughby had been enraged by this outburst but, for years, it had been the party line. They were supposedly exceptionally close friends: they went on holiday together and, in 2016, released photos of themselves splashing in the sea with Phil in an “I heart HW” T-shirt and Holly in an “I heart PS” one. This was partly a parody of the affair Tom Hiddleston and Taylor Swift were conducting at the time in which Hiddleston had proclaimed his regard by means of papped-T-shirt, but it was also supposed to be sincere. Schofield captioned one of the photos with the word “bestie” which Willoughby then reposted, adding “Love!!!”.
This is all a bit emetic, but they’d obviously concluded that, whether they were close or not in real life, it was a good idea to seem like they were. Perhaps they were inspired by Ant and Dec, whose friendship has made them market leaders of their genre of television. But Ant and Dec met as teenagers, came to prominence side by side and stayed there. They are indisputably genuine friends. Were Phil and Holly?
It is entirely plausible that, before recent controversies over queue-jumping in Westminster Hall and the prosecution of Schofield’s brother, they got on fine. Or well. Or even extremely well. But projecting the notion that they were splashing-in-the-waves “besties” is over-egging the pudding. There’s a 19-year age gap. He’s been on telly since she was four. That doesn’t preclude their being friends but it would inform the relationship. There was no suggestion of that texture in the story they were trying to tell, which was basically just a couple of kids having a hell of a laugh. Except one of them’s in his 60s.
Their friendship was a fiction written by people unskilled at writing fiction. Consciously or subliminally, the audience didn’t buy it and felt patronised. So when the lie is exposed, that’s box office.
Working intensively with one other person in showbusiness can be trying. I know this from years of constant creative collaboration with Robert Webb, an extremely close friend of mine whom, for months at a time, I found unbearable. My only consolation was that he felt the same about me. This was during a period when we were working together – either writing or performing – for the vast majority of the time we were awake. When you spend hours and hours, day after day, with the same person, and it is someone with whom you are not in love, it’s hard not to take their continued presence as a long, low-energy assault on your very soul.
Whatever the specifics of Schofield and Willoughby’s quarrel, a major cause can be summarised in two words: you again. They must be sick of each other, a condition that their attempts to broadcast an image of idyllic amity on social media will have exacerbated because it necessitated spending even more time together.
Rob and I could have given them a key piece of advice. It’s simple: don’t have a row. We never have. Even though you want to, don’t. It will not clear the air, it will poison it. You can’t “have it all out” because the root cause of each person’s distress is the other’s constant presence. That is not OK to express. There is no person who can take that well, let alone one who is already finding you infuriating. You cannot say: “The incessant pressure of your personality has left a bruise on my brain.” You must say nothing, remain civil, revel in passive aggression and, at the first opportunity, go on holiday with someone else. That way, when you come home, you’ll still have a job.
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