Alison Hammond and Dermot O’Leary ‘feel let down and upset’ by Phillip Schofield’s ‘extraordinary’ statement
Daily Mail
Holly, who is officially due to be back on the show on Monday June 5 after a two-week family holiday, could extend her time off in a desperate attempt to avoid being dragged further into controversy, PR guru Mark Borkowski has said.
The team behind ITV’s golden girl, including her advisers, agents and lawyers, will now need to ‘come up with the goods’ to guarantee her future, he claimed.
Mr Borkowski told MailOnline: ‘For Holly it’s a case of staying out of the headlines, taking time out. Disappearing from public view.
‘Clearly she won’t do TV at the moment, she might possibly extend that. She’s the girl next door. She has huge commercial deals, clearly a talent, clearly liked.’
He added that Holly now must demonstrate she can be trusted by viewers – as many are questioning who at the channel knew about Schofield’s relationship with his colleague.
On Holly he said: ‘Just because you’re a celebrity you are held to a higher degree of scrutiny [but] every human fails, there is drama in everyone’s lives.
‘My view is that we are yet to know and it’s for her to rebuild trust of her audience and get her representatives to work extremely hard in regaining some of the ground that might have been lost,’ Mr Borkowski said.
After quitting This Morning last weekend, Phillip had still been set to host the British Soap Awards for a 13th successive year, but he will no longer be doing so after quitting ITV altogether.