Towards the top of the lengthy, scorching summer season of 2009, I ran into Holly Willoughby in a relatively unlikely place.
Back then, the longer term star of daytime TV was removed from a family title. Just 28, she nonetheless wore her hair in lengthy blonde ringlets relatively than the shorter tresses she prefers at the moment. Nor was she dressed head-to-toe in her now-trademark designer frocks.
This extra casual type maybe explains why, after we met within the queue for the women’ on the now-defunct V music competition in Chelmsford, Essex, Holly was surprisingly candid: she revealed she’d ‘almost fainted’ when she was provided the prospect to current Britain’s most high-profile breakfast present alongside veteran broadcaster Phillip Schofield.
Sian Welby internet hosting This Morning on Thursday on the finish of her four-day ‘trial’ stint
She additionally admitted she was nonetheless ‘in shock’ and that she ‘hadn’t seen it coming’.
There is little question it was an enormous promotion: barring a stint on youngsters’s tv, presenting The X-tra Factor (a spin-off from Simon Cowell’s hit The X Factor) and a few sequence of Dancing On Ice alongside Schofield, she had little broadcasting expertise.
Eight days after our assembly, Holly took her place alongside Schofield – and the remaining, as they are saying, is historical past.
My reminiscence of assembly her all these years in the past got here dashing again to me on Monday this week, once I switched on my TV – and did a double-take.
ITV bosses are determined to discover a successor to Holly Willoughby as a number on the present
There on ITV’s flagship daytime present was new presenter Sian Welby, fastidiously entering into Holly’s LK Bennett footwear for the primary episode of a four-day ‘trial’ stint on the helm of This Morning.
Dressed in a £120 denim jumpsuit from high-street chain And Other Stories, and smiling from ear to ear, Sian humbly launched herself – and it was nearly as if Holly was again.
In her approachable Midlands accent, Sian – who seems to be a lot youthful than her 37 years – shared a deeply private story about her father who lives with dementia, whereas co-host Dermot O’Leary (an enormous fan, I’m advised) watched on proudly.
On X, previously generally known as Twitter, viewers known as the rising star ‘a breath of fresh air’ who ‘makes the show so fun to watch’.
And behind the scenes, the higher echelons of ITV have been simply as thrilled – with Martin Frizell, This Morning’s editor and the Svengali of daytime tv, particularly smitten.
One insider on the present later advised me I wasn’t alone, saying: ‘Sian reminds us all of early Holly. She was totally relatable and lovable. No airs and graces.’
This makes her an important aid to ITV bosses, who lastly have one thing to smile about nearly 4 months after the embattled Holly sensationally stop This Morning amid an alleged plot to kidnap and homicide her.
Viewers stated Ms Welby, 37, was ‘a breath of fresh air’ who ‘makes the show so fun to watch’
For Frizell and his lower-profile boss, ITV Daytime Managing Director Emma Gormley, it has been a torrid 12 months. Last March, the present was thrown into turmoil when Holly and Phil, as soon as one of the best of pals, fell out spectacularly.
After quitting the present in May final 12 months, Schofield admitted he had carried out an ‘unwise but not illegal’ affair with a male colleague a long time his junior – and, even worse, lied about it.
Finally, final October, Holly herself departed – leaving the way forward for This Morning in jeopardy.
Dressed in a £120 denim jumpsuit from high-street chain And Other Stories, the brand new host smiled from ear to ear as she launched herself
Ms Willoughby in her early days presenting This Morning in 2011
I’m advised that, for a time, ITV executives had hoped to tempt Cat Deeley, 47, to the couch, however her commitments in America – she is the star of the favored expertise present So You Think You Can Dance – put paid to that, though some at ITV stay in Deeley’s camp.
Now many on the community have concluded that it might be higher to signal Sian as an alternative, and let her make the present her personal.
Although ITV bosses recognize O’Leary as a seasoned presenter for Friday’s present, I’m advised they hope to signal Ben Shephard to take a seat within the extra coveted Monday-Thursday slot as soon as occupied by the disgraced Schofield. If Shephard, 49, agrees, it might be like 2009 once more.
When we met in that queue all these years in the past, the younger Holly breathlessly advised me: ‘There were so many other talented presenters in the frame, I never thought I’d have an opportunity!’
Words, presumably, that Sian would echo at the moment – as a glittering future awaits her.