A former This Morning star has said she didn’t understand why Phillip Schofield left the show (Picture: Ken McKay/ ITV/ REX/ Shutterstock)

Judy Finnigan has admitted she doesn’t think Phillip Schofield should have left This Morning.

Earlier this year Schofield, 61, left ITV and its flagship breakfast programme after admitting to lying about an ‘unwise but not illegal’ affair with a much-younger colleague.

A few months later his long-time co-host Holly Willoughby also quit the show, saying it was a ‘difficult goodbye’, but that she needed to put her family first.

Now Judy, who launched and co-hosted the show alongside husband Richard Madeley from 1988 until 2001, has weighed in on one of her successors exits.

‘I couldn’t understand why Phillip had to go,’ she has said.

After he quit, Judy said she also sent him some emails with messages of support.

Judy Finnigan also spoke about the sexism she faced when first working on the breakfast programme (Picture: Mattpapz/ Backgrid)

In them, she told him to ‘keep his chin up and wished him luck’.

Reflecting on claims of a ‘toxic work culture’ at the show, Judy also said she was taken aback by what was being said about her former workplace.

‘I’ll be absolutely straight. I did not recognise the world that people were saying This Morning had become when all that happened and Phillip left,’ she added when speaking to The Independent.

‘It simply wasn’t like that when we were there.’

However, she said much had changed in the two decades since she left and she’d observed the tone of daytime TV had switched.

Both Schofield and his former co-host Holly Willoughby quit this year (Picture: Ken McKay/ ITV/ REX/ Shutterstock)

‘I don’t know how many people watch This Morning now, but the image it presents is much more showbizzy than when we did it, and I suppose much more frivolous,’ she said.

‘But then, presumably programmes get feedback and that’s what their audience wants.

‘I’m not sure how many people even watch the news anymore.’

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While Judy, 75, admitted some expected the show to be cancelled after she and Richard, 67, left because they were ‘so synonymous with it’, she believes it can prevail despite losing both of its main hosts this year.

‘If they get the right presenters, the right atmosphere, which is crucial, if it’s relaxed and warm and there is still an audience out there for it, it will go on for as long as it can,’ she said.

Judy and her husband Richard Madeley hosted This Morning from 1988 until 2001 (Picture: Kieron Mccarron/ITV/REX/Shutterstock)

While there’s been plenty of names in the mix, Judy has said there’s no chance she will be one up for consideration.

‘I’ve got absolutely no interest in it at all now. I mean, it was a fabulous career, I loved it. Well, I loved most of it. And it was fascinating. I met some amazing people and it was well-paid,’ she explained.

‘But I did it for 30-odd years and the kind of TV I was doing was full-on, it was live and it completely sucks up your life. As a mother, I just got fed up of it. I wanted my own life instead of one that needed me to be in a studio at seven o’clock in the morning.’

Looking back at her time working on This Morning, Judy said she did experience sexism, and faced assumptions that her husband was ‘more suitable’ to deliver ‘a serious newsflash’ simply because he was a man.

While she said it made her laugh at times, it also caused many fights between them, but because they ‘had each other’s backs’ they soon stopped that and worked to make the programme ‘100% equal’.

Earlier this year Richard also said he was supporting Schofield (Picture: Ken McKay/ITV/REX)

A few months ago, Richard also revealed he was supporting Schofield.

Speaking to The Sun, he said the way he was treated was a ‘pretty savage outcome after 21 years (in the job)’.

‘It seemed quite brutal to be honest.’

He went on to explain he ‘took a paternal interest in it’ and kept in touch with Schofield, telling him to ‘take it easy and that it’ll be all right’.

This Morning airs weekdays from 10am on ITV1.

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‘I couldn’t understand why he had to go.’