15 August 2023 , 12:02
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Three high-profile TV presenters have been entangled in scandal in the past few months, leaving many fans wondering when they will see them, if ever, on their screens again.
All three men - Phillip Schofield, Huw Edwards, and James Martin - had differing responses to their varying degrees of crises, but according to a crisis communications and PR expert, some made matters worse, seeing very different outcomes and were either rescued or jeopardised by those around them.
First, there was Phillip Scofield, who at the end of May quit This Morning following a rumoured feud between himself and long-standing co-star Holly Willoughby, before then admitting to an "unwise but not illegal" affair with a younger male colleague, which he initially denied.
The public admission and following fallout with ITV and best pal Holly saw the disgraced presenter walk from the channel altogether, and with it sacrificing his reign as the king of daytime TV.
In a statement on departing from This Morning, in which he failed to mention his co-host, Phil announced: “I have always been proud to cover fascinating stories on This Morning. But recently, This Morning itself has become the story. Throughout my career in TV – including the very difficult last few days – I have always done my best to be honourable and kind. I understand that ITV has decided the current situation can’t go on, and I want to do what I can to protect the show that I love.
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“So I have agreed to step down from This Morning with immediate effect, in the hope that the show can move forward to a bright future. I’d like to thank everyone who has supported me – especially This Morning’s amazing viewers – and I’ll see you all for the Soap Awards next month.”
In a shocking statement, Phillip then admitted to having an affair while he was still married to his now ex-wife Stephanie Lowe. He shared: "The first thing I want to say is: I am deeply sorry for having lied to them, and to many others about a relationship that I had with someone working on This Morning. I did have a consensual on-off relationship with a younger male colleague at This Morning."
"I am painfully conscious that I have lied to my employers at ITV, to my colleagues and friends, to my agents, to the media and therefore the public and most importantly of all to my family. I am so very, very sorry, as I am for having been unfaithful to my wife...," he said in a statement released to the Daily Mail.
Former pals Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby at last year's NTAs (David Fisher/REX/Shutterstock for NTA)He continued: “I have therefore decided to step down from the British Soap Awards, my last public commitment, and am resigning from ITV with immediate effect expressing my immense gratitude to them for all the amazing opportunities that they have given me.
“I will reflect on my very bad judgement in both participating in the relationship and then lying about it.” Phillip claimed he covered up the fling for years in a bid to "protect" his former colleague as he insisted the relationship was "unwise" but not "illegal".
As the star confirmed his affair, he agreed to part ways with his management company of 35 years, YMU Group. While ITV at the time told the Mirror that when rumours began to swirl between Phil and an ITV employee in 2020, they investigated the matter.
"Both parties were questioned and both categorically and repeatedly denied the rumours as did Phillip's then agency YMU," they said. "In addition, ITV spoke to a number of people who worked on This Morning and were not provided with, and did not find, any evidence of a relationship beyond hearsay and rumour. Phillip’s statement yesterday reveals that he lied to people at ITV, from senior management to fellow presenters, to YMU, to the media and to others over this relationship."
Following the news of the affair, Holly took to Instagram to share a statement. She wrote: "It's taken time to process yesterday's news. When reports of this relationship first surfaced, I asked Phil directly if this was true and was told it was not. It's been very hurtful to now find out that this was a lie." And later, in her first appearance back on the This Morning sofa, alongside Josie Gibson, the host said she had been left "shaken, troubled, let down and worried" amid the scandal.
And although the pair became known for their infamous partying after the National Television Awards, the 2023 ceremony will look very different from years gone by following their separation, as today's nominations reveal that both presenters have failed to bag a mention.
Meanwhile, in July, Huw Edwards was named as the newsreader at the centre of allegations of payments for intimate photographs. Police found no wrongdoing but the BBC's investigation into the suspended News at Ten host is still ongoing, as they look into claims of inappropriate messages sent to younger members of staff.
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He is yet to speak on the matter but his wife, Vicky Flind, ex-BBC, broke his silence and revealed the star was in hospital receiving mental health support. She said: “I am doing this primarily out of concern for his mental well-being and to protect our children. Huw is suffering from serious mental health issues. As is well documented, he has been treated for severe depression in recent years.
“The events of the last few days have greatly worsened matters, he has suffered another serious episode and is now receiving in-patient hospital care where he’ll stay for the foreseeable future. Once well enough to do so, he intends to respond to the stories that have been published.”
Vicky's response was a "crisis communications masterclass" (ITV/ Getty)On the day it was revealed the 61-year-old was admitted to hospital, BBC’s Newsnight reported claims from one current and one former worker, who said they had received “inappropriate messages” from him, “some late at night and signed off with kisses”. Both alleged there was “a reluctance among junior staff to complain to managers about the conduct of their high-profile colleagues", in case it adversely affected their careers.
Just a few weeks later, it came out that TV chef James Martin had been accused of "bullying and intimidating behaviour" by crew members. The 51-year-old's sweary rant on a Zoom call was leaked, where he can be heard complaining to staff after the drain at his home was blocked during filming for his ITV show, James Martin's Saturday Morning, in 2018.
In the leaked tape, obtained by The Sun, James can be heard saying: "I am absolutely furious, beyond belief. It’s my home, it’s my house. It’s my f**ing house. Nobody listens, nobody f**king listens do they. I will not put up with this, this is b*llocks. A driveway that cost me £26,000 is f**ked because somebody put a load of oil in the f**king bin that’s now dripped everywhere and f**king ruined my driveway.
"If this was somebody’s house you would end up with a massive bill. People would get fired and rightly so, if this was working for Endemol your arse would be f**king fried." James continues in the furious 10-minute tirade to tell those on the call to show his property "more f***ing respect" - otherwise, they're gone. He goes on to warn if a plumber doesn't appear at his house by the next day to give him a quote, somebody will be fired."
He continues to warn "senior members of our staff will get f**king fired because I‘m sick of it" and then informs his crew they are banned from using any of his kitchenware, furniture or amenities, telling them: "Don’t even f**king think about bringing an articulated truck and dumping a Portakabin in my house. I’ll tell you what’s going to happen. You’re going to prep it up [the food, for filming] in a pissy little f**king van."
James responded to the accusations with an apology for his behaviour, as he opened up about one of the 'most fraught and difficult periods' of his life - revealing a skin cancer diagnosis and a burglary at his home. He wrote on Twitter: "Firstly, I would like to publicly and sincerely apologise to the crew involved in this incident, as I did at the time. I have always strived to keep my private life private. However since details of a conversation, which was secretly recorded in January 2018, are now five years later being made public by a former member of our production team, I have decided to make a statement. The end of 2017 was one of the most fraught and difficult periods of my life.
"I was dealing with the death of my last living grandparent, my grandfather, and on account of work commitments, I could not attend his funeral. Later that month I was burgled at night by a team of masked men, who entered my house while my partner Louise was at home alone and I was away working. I was devastated that she had to go through alone."
He went on to discuss his diagnosis, telling fans: "I was then diagnosed with cancer on my face and I had to have surgery, which I couldn't do until two days before Christmas when we had finished filming. Since then it has returned on several occasions and I have to have regular treatments.
Chef James Martin publicly apologised for his behaviour following bullying claims (Getty Images)
PR expert Edward Coram-James (Go Up)"After all this stress I was in a very emotional state, and when after filming in early January 2018 I discovered my home had been flooded while filming, I was extremely upset. I can only say I am human and following a build-up of personal life pressure, I admit that I overreacted regarding the damage to my home."
Edward Coram-James, from Go Up, believes that ITV and best pal Holly "threw Phillip under the bus", while Huw Edwards' wife's response 'saved' his career, and that James Martin learned 'cues' from Flind that saw him escape further public scrutiny. Controversially, Ed reckons Martin's PR crisis was the worst out of the bunch due to having a string of potential victims at the receiving end of his alleged bullying, but after learning from the others, came out relatively unscathed.
"None of them should have resulted in permeant damage to their careers. Feathers lost? Absolutely. Lives destroyed? Absolutely not," Ed began. "In my opinion, when looking at the three different crises, Martin's is the most serious, followed by Edwards, followed by Schofield.
"This might seem like an odd statement. If you asked any punter on the street to rank these three men based on the seriousness of what they did, almost universally people would claim that it was Schofield, followed by Edwards, followed by Martin. However, this perception is not based on the facts surrounding the crises, but on the fallout from those crises: how they were reported and how the principals reacted. There is a significant disparity between the on-paper scale of the actual crises, and the scale of the crises as they were reported."
In his area of work, Edward says any unfolding incidents should be ranked out of 10 before justifying the scale of public response. If a crisis is 5/10 on the severity scale, then it warrants a 5/10 response, but if PRs respond with a 3/10, then the client runs the risk of avoiding accountability. But it works both ways in that if a celebrity and their team respond to the same allegation with a 7/10, then it encourages the public to view the incident as a bigger deal than it is.
Ed says Phillip Schofield was left hung out to dry compared to Huw Edwards, who was supported by colleagues (Ken McKay/ITV/REX/Shutterstock)When it comes to what happened with Phillip Schofield, Ed argues there was a degree of homophobia with the public outcry. But what didn't help was those around him, he says, with Holly admitting on national TV that she had been left "shaken, troubled, let down and worried" amid the scandal.
"You only have to look at the fallout from the Schofield saga and the double standards in terms of society's response to, say, Huw Edwards, to see that Schofield had every reason to fear the potential for unfair and inflated scrutiny of his private life…" Ed continued. "He was also a well-loved and famous television personality, and thus even more open to unbalanced criticism.
"Most ordinary folk would have lied about having an affair, and he had much more to lose in his affair than most ordinary folk. He was abandoned and thrown under the bus by his protegee and friend, Willoughby, abandoned by his employers, fired by the talent agency that he had remained loyal to… was the affair inappropriate? Yes. Affairs are always inappropriate. Aside from his wife, his younger colleague and himself, was it anyone else's business? In my opinion, absolutely not."
Speaking of the response from ITV and others, Ed claimed: "They panicked and released erratic and ill-considered statements that fanned the flames of confusion, allowing rumour and gossip to take hold and the media and social media to own the narrative. His inner circle deserted him, and indeed threw him under the bus.
"I don't believe that, from a crisis comms point of view, there was any good reason for Willoughby not to close ranks around her old friend and mentor. Doing so would have had the same cooling effect as Flind's statement had about Edwards." Ed claims that when the speculation was mounting against Edwards, it looked as though his world was about to implode on him. But the way his inner circle responded was his saviour.
"Social media was awash with rumours about who the BBC presenter was. A witch hunt, in the truest sense, had begun. However, even when the engine was seeming to be gaining more and more momentum, Edwards' inner circle closed ranks around him quickly and decisively. His wife, Vicky Flind, who one could argue is one of the only people whose business her husband's alleged behaviour actually is, defended him vociferously.
"In one short and sharp but human and balanced statement, she underlined his struggles with mental health, reminded the world that it was no one's business, and demanded privacy for him and her family. It worked. Celebrities and colleagues jumped to his defence, setting Twitter ablaze with statements of support and solidarity.
"The public and media reacted accordingly. The public is often very empathetic when it comes to human struggle and very compassionate when it comes to the mental health issues of others. By humanising Edwards, Flind turned him from being an object of fair game attack to an object of sympathy that people wanted to rally around and defend.
"Had Flind not come to Edwards' defence in a calm, collected but precise way, Edwards' career would be in tatters. Hers was a crisis communications masterclass that defanged social media and The Sun, allowed the BBC to react in a balanced way and paved the way for others to come out and defend him. On the other hand, ITV and Willoughby's handling of the Schofield saga was, in my opinion, the decisive factor in his downfall."
Holly Willoughby said she felt “shaken, troubled, let down, and worried” for “the wellbeing of people on all sides of what's going on” (ITV)
Phil has since been spotted with friend Vanessa Feltz after disappearing from the limelight (Ken McKay/ITV/REX/Shutterstock)When it comes to Martin, the timing was everything. Ed believes the TV chef had been paying careful attention to the two aforementioned crisis scenarios, and learned from them, particularly from Vicky Flind. "He took a cue from Flind's playbook and opened up about his personal and mental health struggles at the time," Ed claimed. "This humanised him in the eyes of the public and the story lost its sting. And, to be fair to Martin, it doesn't look like he had to search too hard to find excuses for his behaviour.
"ITV also seem to have learned a lesson from the significant part that they played in inflating instead of deflating the damage in the Schofield fallout, also taking a cue from the Edwards scenario. Instead of panicking and taking heavy-handed measures, they took a breath, took advice, and released a balanced statement that was proportionate to the level of the actual crisis. And, because of the in-sync nature of Martin's and ITV's statements, the crisis dissipated before it had really begun."
Edward says there are a number of rules to follow in crisis communications to limit any unjustified spirals. Releasing statements in the first 24 hours can set the tone, he says, with mistakes made in that 'golden period' hard to come back from. Secondly, synchronisation is of the utmost importance to avoid confusion and the narrative running away from the facts of the story, which can lead to unnecessary inflation.
"Thirdly, match your response to the scale of the crisis, not to the scale of the outcry," the expert added. "Fourthly, humanise the principal. Flind and Martin released calm and cooling statements. By reminding the public of the various personal struggles involved, they humanised the principals - this immediately deescalated matters. Panic breeds more panic and crisis feeds off panic. Calm creates calm and crises are defused by calm."
ITV and Holly Willougby were approached for comment.
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