Fern Britton claims that after informing her she was “awful” halfway through a broadcast, a BBC Breakfast editor once shut her in an office with another boss to reprimand her.
The 68-year-old TV host described sobbing off her makeup before being instructed to reapply it before departing, saying she felt “decimated” by the event.
Fern recalled the incident, saying that two editors “shredded” her in the office after the live performance.
Fern talked about the “very, very difficult” time in her career when she appeared on James O’Brien’s Full Disclosure program.
Fern refers to the program as This Morning during the visit, but a spokesman subsequently explained that she was referring to BBC Breakfast, which was once known as Breakfast Time.
Fern talked on how she left the show because she was “unhappy” and that her coworkers “hated” her.
She responded, “I left This Morning because I was very unhappy there,” when asked about leaving the show after ten years. Frank [Bough] and the editor both detested me. For me, it was made really challenging.
Fern Britton claims that after informing her she was “awful” halfway through a broadcast, a BBC Breakfast editor once shut her in an office with another boss to reprimand her.
The editor once exclaimed to me, “You are terrible, you are awful, now sit down there and do another hour,” as he entered the room at eight o’clock, almost halfway through the morning.
“He invited me into his locked office after the program, where he and his deputy editor simply tore me to pieces while I sobbed uncontrollably. It was a Friday, and he said, “You’re not leaving this office until you put some make-up on.” He went to get my bag after I answered, “Well, it’s in the bag, on the desk,” and I had to apply my makeup in front of him.
“Because he didn’t want everyone to know you’d been crying?” inquired James. Or.
“What he did was really bad, it really decimated me,” Fern said in closing.
From 1983 to 1984, Fern was an employee of the BBC’s breakfast show, Breakfast Time. When the show first debuted, she was one of the original presenters.
In October 1989, Breakfast Time became Breakfast News, and in October 2000, it became BBC Breakfast.
Fern collaborated with Frank and Selina Scott, among other well-known presenters, on Breakfast Time.
Fern claimed that after being cast on the morning show in the 1980s, her introduction to broadcasting was challenging.
“I was invited to meet them all for lunch when I first met Frank because I was the new person joining the team,” she recounted. When we reached the point where everyone was finishing their cigarettes and stubbing them out on the pudding plate, as you could then, Frank was on my right and the editor was on my left. He leaned back in his chair with his cigarette, turned his knees to me, and said, “Well, I wonder how long it will be before I’m having an affair with you? because I do have a huge c**k.
“That was the situation. That’s how it was; I’m not saying it’s correct.
Debbie Rix, Francis Wilson, Selina Scott, Frank Bough, Mike Smith, and Fern Britton are shown with Fern (right) next to her co-host on BBC Breakfast, Frank Bough.
Fern claims that throughout her tenure on the show, previous co-host Selina also found it difficult to collaborate with Bough.
“With Frank Bough, it was challenging,” she remarked. “She [Selina] struggled with Frank Bough… he was trouncing her.” “One day, he was watching her on a movie, and I was sitting next to him that morning.” “Look at her, she even rides a bike with her knees together,” he remarked as he observed her riding over the Highlands or something.
Following her tenure at the BBC, Fern joined Phillip Schofield as the regular host of This Morning on ITV.
Fern famously had a falling out with her co-host Phillip before leaving This Morning in 2009, and they haven’t spoken since.
According to Phillip’s autobiography, their relationship was “beyond repair.”
She reportedly felt “living in Phil’s shadow” and “undervalued by ITV” at the time.
In spite of this, Fern mentioned in subsequent years that she had “great fun” hosting This Morning with her old friend while discussing his own departure from the AM program.
“It brought up a lot of mixed emotions,” she stated in an interview with Saga. I have happy memories of the years we spent working together, which were generally a lot of fun and a fantastic partnership. I understood how much he loved his profession and cared about his public image. It must have been a really trying period for him and his family.
When Fern thanked Phillip on his 40th anniversary in television in a video message in 2022, their long-running feud came to an end.
The mother of four made her screen comeback last year when she joined Louis Walsh and Sharon Osbourne on Celebrity Big Brother.
Following his admission of having a “unwise but not illegal” romance with a 20-year-old crew member on the daytime show, Phillip resigned from This Morning and all TV projects.
In a statement at the time, Holly Willoughby, who took over as host of This Morning from Fern, said she had been “hurt” by his “lies.”
After 14 years on the program, Holly resigned from hosting This Morning owing to a scary kidnapping threat. She then took a break from the spotlight.
Fern became a successful novelist after leaving This Morning, penning several Sunday Times best-selling novels and participating on a variety of TV shows.
In addition to competing on Celebrity Big Brother in 2024, she presented the BBC shows Fern Britton Meets, The Big Allotment Challenge, and The Watercolour Challenge.
Fern said in 2020 that she and her 20-year spouse, fellow TV personality and famous chef Phil Vickery, had “unexpectedly” broken up.
In a 2023 interview with Good Housekeeping, Fern stated that she had “entered a new phase of her life” since her children are now adults and she is not married.
“It’s as if this whole other world has opened up,” she said. I never imagined that I would be sixty-five, single, and completely content.
Fern was “heartbroken and dumbfounded” when her ex-husband Phil was seen dating her former best friend Lorraine Stanton back in 2022.
From 1999 to 2009, Fern co-presented This Morning.
Fern and her co-host Phillip Schofield notoriously fell out before Fern left This Morning in 2009, and they haven’t spoken since (seen together on the show).
At the time, a source informed Daily Mail that Fern wrote a statement to downplay the situation and “stop it getting out control” since she was embarrassed by the news going public.
Since then, Fern has disclosed that she has been making mental and physical adjustments in her life since she felt that she wasn’t taking enough care of herself.
The former host of This Morning clarified: “A year or so ago, I realized that I wasn’t taking care of myself—physically or emotionally. I wasn’t exercising, and I was eating too much. Suddenly, it was like I turned a switch and I thought, “No, you’ve got to look after yourself.”
I started doing it, and it has given me a different kind of energy. I started using the Couch to 5k running program and do some yoga. I’m quite slow since I have arthritis in one of my knees and will soon have a shoulder replacement, but I thought, “Come on, it’s only three miles!”I enjoy the fitness aspect of it, but I’m not planning to run a long marathon or beat anyone.”
