‘They operated as a unit’ – can Holly survive Phil’s fall from grace?

If you were to look in Holly Willoughby’s handbag at the moment, you might find a little chunk of rainbow fluorite, possibly a smooth bloodstone or a rose quartz. The first, according to her lifestyle site Wylde Moon, is good for “focusing on your future”, the second is for positivity, the third for “shifting energy and transformation”. Willoughby could, you’d imagine, do with all three this week – she is in the midst of one of the biggest breakups in television history.

It is now four days since Phillip Schofield quit ITV, after it emerged he had had a relationship with a young member of staff and lied about it – but the fallout continues. Now, all eyes are on his co-host Willoughby. After a holiday, she is due to return to presenting the show on Monday, with Brand Holly hanging in the balance.

This week, Eamonn Holmes – who used to present This Morning alongside his wife Ruth and is known to have long had a tense relationship with Schofield – gave an interview, suggesting the revelations spelled the end of both his former colleagues’ This Morning careers. “Not only should Phillip go, but Holly should follow him out the door. I don’t think you’ll ever see Holly back on the couch again.”

It has been 14 years since Holly, then just 28, joined Phil on the This Morning sofa as his choice to replace Fern Britton. For 14 years they charmed the nation with their hysterical laughing fits (sources say their firm friendship is one of the few things about this sorry affair that appears to have been genuine). “Everyone was team Phillip and Holly,” said Holmes. “They were there together, they were seen together, they were the brand.” The reality behind the cameras was, he alleged (claiming to be speaking up on behalf of people at the channel who were hamstrung from going public), very different.

Sources close to the show say Schofield’s affair was “the worst kept secret at ITV”. Willoughby maintains she had no idea it was happening. “When reports of this relationship first surfaced, I asked Phil directly if this was true and was told it was not,” she said in a short statement. “It’s been very hurtful to now find out that this was a lie.”

Among the people who have worked on This Morning, many talk of rumours having circulated for years. “Anyone who worked on This Morning or any of the daytime [shows], you mentioned his name and everyone would know something,” says one former employee. “No official facts, but everyone knew there was more to the story than just being a runner.”

Schofield separated from his wife and came out as gay live on air in February 2020. Willoughby is said to have stuck by him through that time. “It was heartbreaking,” says one former This Morning employee. “We all knew he was being forced to tell. I think they got closer.”

People who have worked on This Morning recall how Willoughby was Schofield’s “prodigy” at first, leaning on him “a lot at the beginning”. They had already co-presented Dancing on Ice together for three years, but fronting a daytime behemoth like This Morning was a different beast. “She’s dyslexic and by her own admission had to learn how to read the autocue,” recalls one source close to the show.

“People say he chose her because he wanted to dominate her.”

For some time, Schofield was the bigger presence on screen. “She would keep quiet and it was all on him,” recalls one former colleague. Then, “the power dynamic changed”.

Willoughby’s stint hosting I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! in 2018 was a turning point. “She was getting more of the limelight. They were more on a level playing field. She’d have more of a voice in the meetings. You could see things took a turn there.”

It was then that Brand Holly really took off – suddenly people didn’t just want to watch her, they wanted to dress like her too. The partnerships (most notably a lucrative link up with M&S, which currently shows no sign of shifting) came flooding in. Soon, Willoughby’s star “absolutely eclipsed” Schofield’s.

At This Morning, the pair were still as solid as ever. They are described as operating as a kind of unit, with some of the crew feeling they were kept “at arm’s length”, claiming that if you weren’t an executive or one of their make-up team you weren’t in their “clique”. One former ITV employee recalls how after many years working there neither seemed to know their name. “They’d always smile but it was them versus us. We were the minions.”

But if Willoughby was distant, Schofield could be explosive, occasionally known to “lose it”. If the show had gone badly, the post-show debrief would be dreaded. “You’d know you were going to be torn to shreds,” recalls one former employee.

“Like every TV star, they have their diva moments. [Schofield] was a perfectionist and if things didn’t go right, you did fear the wrath.”

People grew to look forward to the days when Alison Hammond and Dermot O’Leary were presenting because it would be “more relaxed”.

Willoughby herself, it should be said, is accused of nothing. “She is a great commercial commodity for ITV,” says celebrity publicist Mark Borkowski. “Holly would struggle on the BBC because of the level of commercial deals she has.”

He remains unconvinced that ITV will want to lose her. “Finding somebody of that quality: a woman, the girl next door, not particularly threatening, ITV are doing everything they can to try and mitigate the circumstances beyond this.

“The programme was going to respawn in some way and she is still the great hope for ITV at the moment. They will be throwing out there all sorts of focus groups, market research, talking to advertisers and making a careful decision.”

Meanwhile, in the industry, there are whisperings about what Willoughby might do without her sidekick. “Holly started on kids’ TV, but she really learnt her craft from Phil,” says a source close to the show. “Everyone is now wondering whether she can pull it off without him.”

A source close to Willoughby suggests the events of the past week may have blindsided her. “Her strategy is to keep her head down and not say anything. Before Phil left she had made the decision to not do any active press, promote anything and stay out of the limelight. She just wanted to do her day job. That hasn’t changed for now.”

Willoughby is said to be uncomfortable being the story. “She doesn’t like looking at coverage, she doesn’t engage in social media,” says a source close to the show. “She’s the complete opposite to Phil who is there reading everything and taking to heart all the online stuff. She wanted to be like the Queen – never complain, never explain.”

Some predict she will take a leave of absence until things die down. “I would be playing the ‘this has been a very difficult time’ and ‘the stresses and strains on the family’,” says Borkowski. “I would be preserving the situation and waiting to see where this story travels. Because it doesn’t seem to be over.”

One former colleague feels Willoughby is unlikely to return to the sofa, though not strictly because of her associations with Schofield, and rather because while all this was happening, the viewing public has turned its allegiances to the new presenters. “Phil and Holly were considered to be the King and Queen of This Morning – I don’t think people in ITV realised that actually people were loving the new line up.”

If she leaves This Morning, collateral damage from a torrid public drama, it’s unclear what path she might take next, or what will happen to Brand Holly. There are the fashion partnerships that presumably rely on the prime-time TV slot, there is a question mark over Dancing on Ice, then there’s the lifestyle brand. What Holly does next remains to be seen. For now, she could always follow the advice on her own website and take some time to reflect and look at the moon. “As life waxes and wanes, it’s important to take a moment to look up to that true constant in the sky who sees and knows all.”