ITV This Morning star says she’ll ‘never’ return to show

An ITV This Morning star has taken aim at the programme – saying she’ll never return because the programme has “changed”. Judy Finnigan, husband of Richard Madeley, has blasted the show and doesn’t want to return to the set – even if it is to promote herself and her work. Speaking to Saga Magazine,[1] the TV star said: “For 13 years Richard and I hosted This Morning[2] but I will no longer watch it, and won’t appear on there to talk about my book.

This isn’t a protest. It’s just a very different show than it was when we were doing it. We’d interview people about books and you felt like there was some real interest there.

I’m not sure there would be now.” She went on to talk about the “extraordinary disaster” for the show as Holly quit the show in October following Phillip’s explosive exit back in May. Judy went on and added: “Phillip is not a close friend but he is a friend and I must admit I simply cannot understand why he had to go.”

Judy also said: “A lot of discussion has been had about why the show couldn’t work because Phillip and Holly weren’t good friends any more. I couldn’t understand what I always thought was this unhealthy obsession with Holly and Phillip being friends, therefore, for the programme to work they had to be so close. Programmes and presenters don’t work like that …

“We (Judy and Richard) were married and so supposed to be good friends. I just find the whole thing a great shame and incredibly upsetting.” In the wake of Holly Willoughby[4] quitting the show, Richard said she has done “a very brave, wise and courageous thing” by stepping down from the flagship daytime show. “I think, and Judy agrees with me,…

Holly has done a very brave and wise and courageous thing,” he said. “We know that Holly genuinely puts family first, she puts her family first and her career second. And that really is the order. People watching don’t know that, they just see Holly the professional, but she does put it first.

“I think given the year that she’s had, all the things that she’s had to put up with, and then this terrible thing that happened last week, given that she’s done the show for 14 years, which is a year longer than Judy and I did it when we left, I think it’s given her a chance to kind of step back and take stock and she’s put her family first. “She’s going to focus on them for a while. She’ll come back, not to This Morning, but she’ll come back to do something else.

But I think she’s done exactly the right thing for her own mental health department.”

References

  1. ^ Saga Magazine, (www.saga.co.uk)
  2. ^ This Morning (www.mirror.co.uk)
  3. ^