Fern Britton threw some serious shade at former co-host Phillip Schofield as she made a return to ‘This Morning’ for its 30th birthday on Wednesday.
The presenter, who hosted the ITV daytime show 1999 to 2009, made her feelings quite clear about not being invited to the special Bafta tribute that was held earlier this week to celebrate the milestone anniversary.
Fern appeared via a live link-up during the reunion with Phillip and his current co-host Holly Willoughby, as she is currently in Edinburgh starring in a musical adaptation of ‘Calendar Girls’.
After a few technical difficulties, Holly and Phil reminisced about some of their favourite moments, before Fern changed the topic to the event at Bafta on Monday night, which saw the show given a special award for its contribution to British TV.
Revealing she had been snubbed from the celebrations, she said: “Congratulations on Bafta. That was absolutely wonderful and brilliant, and I would have loved to have been there, but I didn’t get an invitation...”
“You are on stage,” Phillip interrupted. “So, how’s it going? Standing ovations every night...”
Cutting in, Fern quickly quipped: “Well, I wasn’t on Monday night.”
With tension in the air, the conversation moved on as Phillip gave a quick smirk after her comment.
The shade of it all did not go unnoticed by viewers...
Phillip later addressed the matter on Twitter, insisting Fern had been invited.
“Odd really,” he said in response to one user, “because she was invited and declined #memoryloss
“We’d have loved her to be there,” he continued. “A vital and much loved part of the show.”
Fern later responded to a fan who had pointed out Phil’s tweet, remaining insistent she wasn’t invited.
“No. I had no invitation to decline,” she wrote.
However, a spokesperson for the show told The Mirror: “Fern was absolutely invited to attend the BAFTA celebrations with the This Morning team and we were advised that she would not be able to attend.”
While Fern and Phil were famously close when they hosted the show together between 2002 and 2009, but were rumoured to have fallen out over a row about pay, allegedly prompting her to quit in 2009.
While Fern denied this was the case in an interview earlier this year, fans have long speculated that relations between them have broken down since she left following a number of comments they have made about each other in interviews.
In 2013, Phillip revealed they were no longer in contact, telling Heat magazine: “We were involved in the show and mates at the time, but we don’t really...
“I see Phil [Fern’s husband, chef Phil Vickery] when he’s in ‘This Morning’... But we’re not in touch now.”
Fern also skipped the show’s 25th anniversary celebrations that same year, choosing just to send in a short video message.
‘This Morning’ airs weekdays at 10.30am on ITV.
