'IT'S BEEN A REALLY DIFFICULT YEAR FOR EVERYBODY'

After a year of controversies and a nosedive in popularity, Holly Willoughby has quit her presenting role on This Morning

- RHIANNA BENSON

It’s been a turbulent and, at times, traumatic 2023 for Holly Willoughby. Last week, after months of scrutiny and speculation surrounding her future at ITV, the 42-year-old presenter announced her resignation from This Morning after 14 years on air.

“To everyone who has ever worked on the show over the years, thank you so so much,” she wrote on Instagram on Tuesday. “This is such a difficult goodbye, you are incredible and I forever will be proud of what we’ve done together. Thank you to everyone at ITV for being supportive. To every guest who has sat on our sofa, thank you. Most of all, thank you to the wonderful viewers. You’ve been so loyal, so supportive and the very best company every day.”

For Holly, the past 12 months have been plagued with controversy, damaging rumours, confrontations and shock revelations, the most sinister of which being her rumoured knowledge about former co-host Phillip Schofield’s affair with a much younger male colleague on This Morning.

Amid the emotional turmoil of the last year, we often lost sight of the fact that Holly was, at one point during her This Morning stint, one of the UK’s most in-demand television stars.

“I actually can’t believe how things have turned out for me,” she previously said of her success on the show. “I never expected to be in a position like this and I certainly never planned it.”

Once dubbed the golden girl of daytime TV, who was renowned for her warmth towards guests and chemistry with 61-year-old Phillip, Holly’s dip in popularity over the last year began with ‘Queuegate’.