This Morning viewers react to 'cringe' Holly Willoughby tribute: 'She's not dead'

This Morning viewers have slammed a "cringe" tribute to Holly Willoughby after her announcement that she is leaving the show, pointing out "she's not dead".

Willoughby, 42, announced that she was quitting the ITV daytime show after 14 years on Tuesday, following details of an alleged kidnap plot against her.

The mum-of-three said she had made the decision "for me and my family", but This Morning viewers mocked the sombre mood on Wednesday's episode, which included presenters wearing muted colours and looking sad.

It opened with the titles that usually trail what is happening in the show given over to goodbye messages to Willoughby, and presenter Rochelle Humes began: "Of course, we want to start by sending our love, best wishes and respects to our Holly."

Her co-host Craig Doyle added: "Last night, Holly made what we know will have been a heartbreaking decision to leave This Morning after 14 years."

Read more: Who will replace Holly Willoughby on This Morning?

Humes said: "Holly loved her job here and was really looking forward to the future of the show, but recent events, especially in the past week, have been hard to deal with and she's quite rightly putting her family first."

"On behalf of everyone here in front and behind the camera, we just loved working with Holly and she made coming to work so much fun. We're all really, really sad and we're going to miss her," continued Doyle.

Humes finished: "Holly said she's incredibly proud of what she's achieved on this show and so are we. She will forever be one of us."

As the presenters turned to their news headlines segment, they were joined by show regulars Vanessa Feltz and Tom Swarbrick, with Feltz comparing Willoughby to "a real-life Disney princess".

She said: "It's going to be very hard for all of us, we'll miss her because she's just a ray of sunshine and wonderful person."

But the show's viewers thought that the tribute had gone too far, with one person tweeting: "Just seen the opening of this #ThisMorning about Holly. Slightly cringing can't lie to you. 'She will always be one of us'. She isn't dead yet guys."

Someone else commented: "#thismorning has turned into #thismourning with this cringe inducing segment. You’d think she dropped dead, never mind quit the show.."

Another unimpressed viewer added: "Literally could not care less that Holly has left. Everyone is acting as if she’s died."

Someone else agreed: "Can we get one thing clear here, Holly Willoughby is still alive, she has just quit a tv show."

One other viewer tweeted: "Those opening titles. Holly stepped down, not died."

However, others felt not enough fuss had been made of the TV star as one person wrote: "The way Holly's birthday in lockdown was like an episode of This Is Your Life, yet she got that god awful title sequence and minute long speech as a 'goodbye' after 14 years is just plain bizarre..."

Willoughby follows her former co-star Phillip Schofield off the programme, who quit after 21 years in May when details of his affair with a much younger colleague emerged.

The pair had both come under fire in September 2022 when footage from the Queen's lying in state appeared to show them jumping the queue - although they both insisted they had simply joined a media line.