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Vanessa Feltz has claimed that people who have spoken out against This Morning are doing so because they have a grudge against the show.
Over the past month the ITV breakfast programme has not only seen the exit of long-time host Phillip Schofield, 61, after he admitted to lying about having an affair with a young colleague, but other stars have now said the show had a ‘toxic’ environment.
These include claims from former host Eamonn Holmes, 63, and ex resident doctor Ranj Singh, 43.
However now Vanessa, 61, who regularly appears on This Morning has taken aim.
During her Talk TV show on Tuesday, she said: ‘It has been suggested that quite a lot of the people who are very vocally critical of This Morning and, actually, it’s a handful of people, there are some celebrities, a couple of journalists, and what’s been suggested is quite a lot of them were once on the programme and aren’t on it anymore.’
‘And that is the reason for this aggrieved, grudging malice that is coming out but if you ask people who are still on the programme and who are on it regularly, who enjoy being on it, they won’t know what they’re talking about.’
Vanessa Feltz has made clear her thoughts on people speaking out against This Morning (Picture: TalkTV)
Her comments follow claims from presenters such as Eamonn, who said the toxic environment did exist, but placed blame on former host Schofield and his ‘friends in management and everybody who kept you in power and in abuse of power for so long’.
Around the same time Dr Ranj said he had been concerned about the culture at the show, but after raising his worries with management, found himself being used ‘less and less’.
Their comments were backed up by the show’s former Head of News Emily Maddick, who quit her job after three months due to what she labelled a ‘bullying, sexism and a toxic culture of fear and intimidation’.
‘I am sad to report there is a culture of intimidation at This Morning and on a number of occasions this has prevented me from doing my job to the best of my ability,’ she wrote in a piece published on Glamour, where she now works.
Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby hosted the show for the past nine years together (Picture: Ken McKay/ITV/Shutterstock)
Recalling a ‘climate of fear’, Maddick said she had ‘overheard’ what she found to be sexist comments at times, and pointed to instances of bullying that left her concerned about the ‘mental health’ of her team.
‘I was flabbergasted by how utterly fake it all was,’ she wrote in the piece.
After resigning from This Morning, Schofield denied suggestions that the workplace was a difficult one for staff, saying that it was the ‘best show to work on’.
‘In all the years I worked there there was no toxicity,’ he posted on Instagram.
He added that people could ‘listen to those persistently loud voices if you like’, but the ‘thousands of guests over the years, thousands of staff and crew, hundreds of presenters and contributors all know, it IS a family of wonderful, talented, kind, hard working people’.
This Morning airs weekdays from 10am on ITV1.
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She made her thoughts on the matter clear.