I VIVIDLY remember the moment Holly Willoughby sensationally resigned from This Morning with a carefully written statement as details emerged of a mysterious and spine-chilling kidnap plot.
Within moments my phone rang as the team from TalkTV hurriedly invited me into the NewsUK studios with Vanessa Feltz, Holly’s long-time ITV colleague and co-star.
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Having worked with Vanessa for a number of months on her TalkRadio show, the mood would mostly be jovial whenever I walked into the studio.
Although she would be the consummate professional with a sharp focus on the programme, in true Feltz form, an energetic chinwag would always occur before we went on air.
But this day, it was different.
I could tell that even an experienced broadcaster like Vanessa – toughened by decades of navigating the shark infested waters of showbiz – felt completely shaken by the emerging story that Holly had been at the centre of a foiled murder plot.
Visibly harrowed, I asked her if Holly was okay and, knowing the sensitivity around the subject, I told her that she didn’t have to give me an answer.
With a solemn expression, she simply shook her head. There was a distinctly human element to the story that did not sink in until that moment. And that’s all that was needed.
As a showbiz reporter working on the circuit for the last decade, I had extensively covered multiple scandals and spoken to a number of insiders who worked on This Morning before Gavin Plumb’s hideous scheme was finally exposed.
A volcano of chaos
That’s why I appeared in the Channel 5 documentary telling the story of the chilling plot to kidnap and murder Holly.
The 90-minute docuseries titled The Plot to Kill Holly Willoughy took a look into the mind of a dangerous fantasist explaining how Plumb’s subversive activity came to light following months of scandals surrounding the show.
This included the revelations about Phillip Schofield’s affair with a younger colleague and intense public outrage over Holly and Phil’s decision to seemingly skip The Queue at the Queen’s lying-in-state.
But it only touched upon the fact that Plumb’s arrest marked the eruption of a volcano of drama and chaos that started long before – and one that I was witness to.
I worked with Eamonn Holmes at a TV station in Paddington in 2022.
Here, he briefly mentioned to me about some of the more troublesome things happening at ITV.
But I also saw a lot of it with my own eyes.
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Around 2018, when I was working as TalkRadio’s Entertainment Correspondent, I came across a number of production crew from This Morning who tried their best to paint a picture-perfect atmosphere of the life on the show.
One of them was a young male runner who wasn’t backward in showing off his closeness to the nation’s favourite presenting duo.
This young man would turn out to be at the centre of the huge scandal which caused the downfall of Phillip Schofield’s career.
When he spoke, he was keen to emphasise just how delightful Holly Willoughby was to work with, painting her as an insanely confident host who radiated constant sunshine and who helped him with his presenting showreel.
He emphasised that this was someone who just loved what she did.
Many people in the industry had plenty to say about Phillip and Holly and the alleged toxicity behind the scenes of This Morning.
But for many years, what was so apparent to all of us was just how much Holly and Phil loved working with each other, how much they enjoyed the show, and how passionate they both were about making their edition of This Morning the best in the show’s long history.
We all remember them turning up to work completely drunk or hangover after the National Television Awards. Other presenters would never get away with it, yet they did, partly because of their inseparable bond.
But the blue skies of the iconic This Morning River Thames background could not quite hide the dark clouds that began to envelop as the hurricane slowly started to build.
I was previously told Phillip took issue with the way he was presented over a cover of The Sunday Times Magazine.
On the page, he looked slightly disconcerted as Holly beamed with a crown that was drawn on her head.
The headline read ‘Queen Holly. How Holly Willoughby eclipsed Phillip Schofield and became Britain’s hottest TV star’.
Then came the reported behind-the-scenes rows over International Women’s Day.
Holly wanted to front the show with an all-female presenting team. But Phillip went over her head to bosses in protestation leaving her ‘incandescent with rage’.
Then there was the fallout from ‘Queuegate’ where Holly, Phil and their boss Martin Frizell were escorted to the media platform in Westminster Hall.
It can be said that the public never quite looked at them in the same way and Holly took on the brunt of the scandal.
Then came the high-profile fallout over lingering questions around Phillip’s paedophile brother and the revelations surrounding his affair with the younger male colleague.
By this point of Holly’s own ‘Annus Horribilis’, people were openly questioning if the show – and Holly by extension – could even survive the summer.
After making that infamous ‘Are you okay? I hope so’ statement, Holly opted to escape the drama and speculation with a holiday to Portugal to get a rest before a big September relaunch.
A somewhat ironic choice given this was the country where she and Phil used to spend years of summers together.
ITV’s strategy around This Morning was similar to the way it built GMB around Susanna Reid after Piers Morgan’s departure.
Despite a huge musical number in the Wood Crescent courtyard, producers struggled to recreate that ‘magic’ that Holly mentioned in her dramatic on-air statement.
Although ITV wanted to prove the show was bigger than just one star, the ghost of the scandals and Phillip’s career loomed large over the set.
Producers struggled to recreate that ‘magic’ that Holly mentioned
Of course, this was shown at the 2023 National Television Awards. Holly usually avoided chats on the red carpet before the ceremony in previous years, but here she was with a somewhat defiant front as she confronted the issues head on.
She came straight over to me as I gathered material for my TalkRadio segment with Petrie Hosken – another former This Morning contributor and I asked her about the future.
She told me: “I think at the moment, what the future holds I don’t think any of us yet know … But I think it’s like taking it one day as it comes.”
I was later told by a number of sources that she was actually advised not to talk to any reporters that night, yet here she seemingly wanted to prove her show would continue, emitting the same optimism that the runner suggested all those years ago.
Despite losing the daytime award to The Repair Shop, it was all systems go until the day she disappeared from screens under a shroud of mystery.
There was once a time where barely a day went by where Holly didn’t appear somewhere on the telly. Plumb’s plot may well have been that life-changing moment that made Holly reevaluate what truly matters.
She’s been seen only sparingly on our screens and this may well continue following the Dancing On Ice axe and her exit from You Bet! – and I expect this to continue.
As the Channel 5 documentary showed in gruesome detail, Gavin Plumb’s plot was absolutely frightening in both scope and intent.
His videos showing off the murder kit made up of rope, handcuffs, shackles, a ball gag, and bottles of chloroform were just sickening to watch.
What the future holds I don’t think any of us yet know … But I think it’s like taking it one day as it comes.”
Holly Willoughby
The fact he built up a sexual obsession over multiple years, using degrading deep fake material was the very definition of vile. But being mostly housebound and unable to walk long distances, experts on the programme suggested that he thankfully would never have been able to carry out his deluded, twisted and evil plot.
When we filmed the documentary, the director emphasised to me how sensitive we had to be in our approach. It’s clear the effect the plot would have had on Holly could not be overstated.
This documentary showed that being a celebrity may come with privileges, but fame brings vulnerabilities and in this case, a life-threatening danger.
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You can stream The Plot To Kill Holly Willoughby back on 5.
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