Eamonn has hit out at Phil again after branding the rival presenter ‘sly’. He has now branded ITV’s recent celebration of Phil’s 40 years of TV hosting as ‘bizarre’.
Eamonn Holmes appears to have taken another swipe at Phillip Schofield as their vicious feud has been reignited in recent days.
On Monday, ITV bent over backwards to celebrate the fact that 59-year-old Phil was celebrating 40 years of TV stardom – having first started out his career on a kids TV show in New Zealand before becoming a BBC children’s TV host in 1985.
Not content with marking the event on This Morning – the show that Phil presents – ITV daytime highlighted the fact throughout the morning with a segment on Lorraine dedicated to the star.
Some TV fans found it odd that ITV were dedicating so much time to the suddenly controversial star – and it seems 62-year-old Eamonn was in agreement.
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Eagle eyed fans noticed that Eamonn had ‘liked’ a tweet that read: “This #lorraine show is bizarre.. why not celebrate 40 years on #thismorning instead of another show?”
He also liked a string of others that slammed ITV for sacking him from This Morning – a show he left last year before landing a presenting role on GB News.
Eamonn and his wife Ruth Langsford, 61, are to be at loggerheads with Phil – with a spat that has its roots back in 2019.
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Tension was visible when Phil cut Ruth off during a segment on Loose Women.
Ruth made an official complaint to ITV about Phil’s behaviour – while eight other ITV employees spoke to The Sun to brand the TV host as “toxic”.
Viewers noted a frosty encounter between Ruth and Eamonn the following year when they were both on stage at the same time at the 2020 National Television Awards.
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Over the weekend, Eamonn hit out at Phil via a newspaper supplement interview – he said: “Phillip is renowned for snubbing people. He’s very passive-aggressive.
“It’s up to Ruth to say how she felt, but I was feeling hurt for her. No one would have snubbed me like that.”
An ITV insider defended Phil with a statement explaining that Eamonn had been let go from the This Morning line-up and disputed Eamonn’s claim he was fired without explanation.
An ITV source said: “[Viewers] wanted change, the viewers didn’t want to watch him any more. Things have to change, they evolve and for him to say there was no explanation isn’t true. Maybe Eamonn just didn’t like the reasons given.”
Meanwhile, Phil had suffered an explosive fall out with another member of the ITV talent in 2019 as he clashed with Amanda Holden.
The 51-year-old Britain’s Got Talent judge had been the go-to for cover whenever Holly Willoughby took time off This Morning, but that all changed in 2018.
Amanda had hoped to fill in for Holly, 41, when she took time away from This Morning to host I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! in Australia that winter.
Although Amanda had allegedly been told the job was hers, Phil was accused of campaigning to have former The Saturdays star Rochelle Humes as a co-host – because he believed the 32-year-old is “easier to ‘manage’ on air.”
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Amanda later slammed Phil saying in an interview he was one of three things she would hate to find in her house – along with spiders and flies – and later explained on her Heart FM radio show that she had tried to meet him to thrash out their differences, but that Phil refused to reply to her texts.
And relations between Holly and Phil are said to have been far from pristine.
Phil allegedly got stroppy when Holly won praise, and an award, for her stint on I’m A Celeb with various reports they clashed behind-the-scenes of their daytime show with Phil bitterly and childishly complaining about his co-stars success.