Holly Willoughby’s great talent during her 14 years on This Morning was her likeability. Fronting an institution famous for careering between subjects as discordant as sex with ghosts, ketamine addiction and the Tory cabinet, she was intuitive and in control, able to be human and sincere when the occasion demanded it, and silly, giggly and companionable at every opportunity that required some relief. She was easy to watch, and took the edge off.
But so much curdled after “queuegate”, the Phillip Schofield affair and the show’s parodic response, the disgrace of its regular chef Gino D’Acampo, and rumours of the hosts’ backstage iciness, that all the “still hungover after the National Television Awards” shtick lost its charm. Since she left in 2023, in the wake of Schofield and a traumatising foiled plot to rape, kidnap and murder her, it has become easy to forget just how good she was. Energetic, versatile, in command – but self-effacing, too, and with a mischievous streak and a love of innuendo and going off-script. An old-fashioned presenter, whose personal brand was not really having one at all.
That just won’t cut it in 2026, especially when you’re trying to relaunch your career on YouTube. In this economy, it needs to be all about you. Success depends on audiences and algorithms- highly engaged fanbases of the type that generalists like Willoughby, trained to be professional and keep their opinions to themselves, have never built.
