Entertainment

Holly Willoughby: I was scared when I first met Phillip Schofield

The bubbly presenter also spoke about the possibility of having a fourth child.
The bubbly presenter also spoke about the possibility of having a fourth child. The bubbly presenter also spoke about the possibility of having a fourth child.

Holly Willoughby has admitted being “scared” of her This Morning co-host Phillip Schofield when she first met him years ago.

The TV presenter, 36, said she used to watch Schofield, 55, presenting children’s TV programmes when she was younger, and that led to her nerves as an adult.

Willoughby told ITV’s The Jonathan Ross Show: “I love that man.”

Holly Willoughby
Holly Willoughby (Ian West/PA Wire/PA Images)
Willoughby has released a book about feeding and weaning babies (Ian West/PA)

She added: “We met on Dancing On Ice, rink-side would you believe. I’d obviously watched him on the telly lots, he was in the Broom Cupboard, he was my children’s TV presenter that I used to watch.

“I was a bit scared when I first met him, but that changed very quickly when I realised he was basically me in the male form.”

Willoughby and Schofield first co-hosted Dancing on Ice in 2006, and she joined him as a presenter on This Morning in 2009.

They will return to present the celebrity ice-skating programme next year.

Willoughby – joined on Ross’s chat show by singers Demi Lovato and James Arthur and actor Martin Clunes – also spoke of the criticism she faced when she started in TV over a decade ago, and said she thinks she has less now.

Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield
Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield
Willoughby and Schofield first co-hosted a show in 2006 (Joel Anderson/ITV)

“I think when I started out I did (get criticised) because a lot of people look at the blonde hair and this and that and the other and have a massive judgment on you,” she said.

“When I first started in telly, I had a lot of negative comments about myself but then I suddenly realised I couldn’t be anyone else and actually the bits where I mess up or I’m just me seem to be the things that work.

“And I think when you do so much of it, you can only be you. And when you accept that then that just makes things easier.”

The mother-of-three, who recently released a book about feeding and weaning babies, has not ruled out having another child.

She said: “I love babies. I don’t like the thought of it ever being over.”

She added: “But I don’t think that’s a reason to have another one, if I was lucky enough to have another one.

“Three is a really good number. I’m a working mum, I’m very busy and my children are the most important thing and I think the balance is really right.”

She said she and husband Dan Baldwin were “waiting” for their youngest – son Chester – to come along, and that when he did, “everything felt perfect”.

The Jonathan Ross Show airs at 10pm on Saturday on ITV.