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Holly Willoughby, best known until recently as the host of ITV’s daytime show “This Morning,” is set to make a comeback. Rather than return to ITV, however, she has opted to launch her new lifestyle series “Holly Willoughby Together”
on YouTube.
Premiering July 28, the show is described as a “multi-platform lifestyle series built around real people, real stories, honest conversation, practical advice, celebrity guests, fashion, beauty, health and more” which are apparently “the things Holly genuinely loves.”
The show will be made up of five strands: in-depth coversations, cooking segments, fashion and beauty, health and wellness and, finally, a “hang-out” featuring celebrity guests including Stanley Tucci, Emma Bunton and Katherine Ryan.
Two episodes are set to drop each week on YouTube as well as social media and “digital streaming platforms,” although Willoughby’s rep didn’t reply immediately when Variety asked which ones.
The show will be produced by her husband Dan Baldwin’s production outfit Hungry Bear Media, which also makes the hugely successful entertainment show “Gladiators” for the BBC.
In a statement, the television host said: “I’m so proud of the work all the team who make ‘Together’ have put into this exciting new project. We’ve had a lot of fun developing it and look forward to seeing what you think.”
Willoughby became one of the U.K.’s best-known television personalities thanks to her hosting gig on “This Morning.” But she finally exited the show in 2023 after she found herself caught up in a series of scandals, mostly not of her own making.
First there was the “line-jumping” debacle during Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral in 2022, when she and her longtime co-host Phillip Schofield were accused of using their positions to jump the 14-hour line to see the royal’s lying-in-state. That was swiftly followed by the two-part implosion of Schofield’s career the following spring, first when he took a leave of absence while his brother stood trial (and was convicted) for sexually abusing a teenage boy and a short time later when it emerged he had also had an inappropriate relationship with a young staffer at ITV.
While Willoughby was not in any way implicated, the collapse of her personal and professional relationship with Schofield inevitably dinged her previously golden reputation. After a brief hiatus she returned to “This Morning” in June 2023 but quit for good four months later after it was revealed she had been the intended victim of a gruesome kidnapping and murder plot. A man was found guilty of plotting to kidnap, rape and murder the star in July 2024.
The turmoil led to Willoughby taking a step back from television, aside from a brief stint at Netflix last year on the short-lived “Celebrity Bear Hunt” alongside Bear Grylls, which flopped and was swiftly canceled after one season.
Willoughby’s pivot to YouTube comes as the digital platform increasingly dominates viewing figures in both the U.K. and beyond. According to a recent report from U.K. ratings body Barb, YouTube has become a “significant part of the U.K.’s AV ecosystem.” It has also overtaken many of the U.K.’s biggest networks in terms of viewing figures.
