The 'final straw' that broke Holly and Phil's friendship as she bags new TV job

It’s almost a year since the cracks in Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield’s friendship started to show, with both presenters since leaving This Morning and laying low from the public eye.

Although Phil’s affair garnered plenty of headlines it has now been claimed that it wasn’t this that was the final straw which meant their friendship was unfixable for Holly, but instead the secrecy around Phil’s brother’s court case.

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Writing in the Daily Mail, showbiz editor Katie Hind claimed that not being told that Phil’s brother Timothy was on trial for sexually abusing a teenage boy ‘hurt’ Holly and made things irreparable between them.

Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby on This Morning. Pic: Ken McKay/ITV/REX/Shutterstock

Timothy was convicted and sentenced to 11 years in prison with Phil releasing a statement at the time saying that he ‘no longer has a brother’.

According to sources, Phil had told only the execs at ITV that he had taken an extended break while his brother was on trial and didn’t inform his TV co-presenter.

Phillip Schofield and his brother Timothy. Pic: Instagram

When Phil returned, Holly was absent from the show and when she came back it wasn’t long before the tensions between them were so obvious that This Morning viewers started to ask if something was wrong.

Phil then issued a statement calling Holly his ‘rock’ while admitting ‘the last few weeks haven’t been easy for either of us’ but this was apparently news to Holly who reportedly didn’t know about the statement until she saw it online.

Holly Willoughby at the 28th National Television Awards, Arrivals. Pic: REX

‘She was furious,’ a friend said to the Daily Mail at the time. ‘The gloves really were off. There was no way back.’

Since then, Phil has stepped down from his TV presenting gigs after admitting to having an affair with a younger staffer and Holly has taken time off after being the focus of an alleged kidnap plot.

Phillip Schofield, Holly Willoughby, ‘This Morning’ TV show, London. Pic: REX

Although it’s been a rough year for the once-good pals, Holly is starting to return to the public eye having presented Dancing On Ice with a new co-host and now bagging a new TV gig.

She’s signed a lucrative deal with Netflix to host a jungle-based reality show and will appear alongside survival expert Bear Grylls, 49, as the host of Bear Hunt.

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