“Are you OK? I hope so. It feels very strange indeed sitting here without Phil and I imagine that you might have been feeling a lot like I have: shaken, troubled, let down, worried for the wellbeing of people on all sides of what’s been going on, and full of questions.
“You, me and all of us at This Morning gave our love and support to someone who was not telling the truth, who acted in a way that they themselves felt that they had to resign from ITV and step down from a career that they loved. That is a lot to process.
“And it’s equally hard to see the toll that it’s taken on their own mental health. I think what unites us all now is a desire to heal, for the health and wellbeing of everyone.”
Thus spake TV presenter Holly Willoughby at the start of today’s edition of This Morning. Seemingly, without a trace of irony or self-awareness from a woman paid £730,000 a year, with a bank account bulging with 10 million big ones, this was pure fluff. Are you okay? I mean; really?
Sacked lying colleague Phillip Schofield is no longer a HE. Willoughby has depersonalised and desexed him and turned him into they, them, their rather than Phil as he used to be known. She is “shaken, troubled, let down, worried” at having given “love and support” to a liar who lied. Yes, he’s a lying liar but my autocue says I’d better come up with something highly emotional in case he…no, let’s not go there.
It is the sheer inward-looking nature of this self-pitying nonsense I find it hard to take in. We live in a highly imperfect world, where every day people die, often long before their time, others starve because they cannot afford to eat, others drown when falling off small boats in treacherous waters because they wanted a better life. Christ, there’s so much more. You and I could think of countless, possibly infinite, stories of sadness and distress from our own lives, never mind things that happen to others. And here we are, having a fabulously rich TV presenter asking us: “Are you okay?”
Fucking hell, Holly. I lost one of my best friends to cancer last year, another to a fatal heart attack. Their families are still picking up the pieces of their lives which no matter how hard they try they will not be able to put back together again. and you are bleating about being “shaken, troubled, let down, worried” about something which, in the grand scheme of things, is utterly trivial.
Perhaps, Ms Willoughby could have been a little more outgoing in her thought processes before reading out this crap on national television? She speaks, rightly, about mental health with an eye to some of the desperate, near suicidal language of Schofield himself. But they are just throwaway words. It’s “hard to see the toll that it’s taken on their own mental health”…and?
Only yesterday, the Samaritans reported that the government has been ending suicide prevention funding across England. They say: “Funding has already been stopped in some areas with the highest suicide rates, and by 2024 the rest of it will stop completely. This is an unacceptable decision from the Government when suicide rates are as high now as they were 20 years ago.”
And there’s more. Two third of people who commit suicide are not in touch with mental health services when they die. That is because, and you have seen me mention this so many times before, there are no mental health services in between basis six week counselling services and being sectioned. When Willoughby refers to her former colleague as they, them, their, you would like to think her comment “what unites us all now is a desire to heal, for the health and wellbeing of everyone” represents more than just weasel words.
It’s important to recognise that, whatever his demons, Schofield is in some ways a better place than many other people. Reputedly worth a sum not adjacent to £10 million, I would like to think he would be encouraged to spend part of his fortune on treatment because there’s nothing the NHS can do for him. Correctly advised, he could avoid a complete mental meltdown that he might otherwise suffer. But we don’t know any of this. We don’t know just how fucked up he is.
What This Morning has become is a bizarre and oddly perverted reality show, where the dysfunctional lives of the rich and famous are displayed for some kind of entertainment. Whatever Ms Willoughby was saying this morning was a pre-planned performance stored on an autocue. But we have to hope and then believe that all that stuff about healing, which all of us have to go through at sometime or other, was meant in the spirit you’d like to think was intended.
I still can’t get over “Are you okay?” Love, you’re talking to around a million people. Many of them won’t be. So do me a favour: follow up on this stuff. Millions of people, not just modestly talented TV presenters, are already leading miserable lives. It’s not just that bloke you used to share a sofa with. It’s everyone who has been abandoned by anyone from the family to the country.
The story is about Holly and Phil now. If it stays that way, you’ve both had it. Given Ms Willoughby’s statement today, I don’t think self-awareness is one of her strong points.
By the way, who told you to wear white? That was surely the biggest statement of all.
