The determination to publicly stone Holly Willoughby is not just ferocious, it’s misogynistic – here’s why
DRESSED head to toe in white, like an ancient Egyptian high priestess, the symbolism, surely, wasn’t lost on a single This Morning viewer: “I am pure, I am innocent.”
Holly Willoughby struck back at her detractors, those who insisted, vociferously, she must leave the show.
Holly 1, Cancel Culture 0.
Of course, there are those who claimed her soliloquy to camera was “fake”. That she was cold, callous and calculating.
The reality is this is a smart, ambitious, talented woman, one on a hiding to nothing in the wake of the Phillip Schofield scandal.
Whatever she’d said, however she’d said it, she was going to be slated by the masses.
Had she got down on all fours, wept like an infant, and demanded 75 public lashings outside Television Centre, that still wouldn’t have been enough.
Like a gladiatorial contest of old, factions of the Twitterati have been baying for metaphorical blood – her P45.
(I mean, never mind that, as one commentator wryly severed on Twitter: “Jesus wept! Two consenting adults f***ed who probably shouldn’t have, fibbed about it and got caught out: one quit his job. You’d think Schofield had gone on to a shooting spree, killed 16 people then burned down a church and taken a dump on Captain Tom’s grave.”)
But in the barbaric court of online, the determination to publicly stone Holly, confine her to the annals of daytime sofa history, has been ferocious.
It’s also been, at times, nothing short than misogynistic.
Why blame it on the man, the one who’s admitted to lying, when you can drag the woman down too?
Sack one, sack another free.
Ah, yes — the woman, with emotional intelligence and maternal warmth, must have known her best pal was shagging the runner.
Defying her very gender, she must have been complicit in the resulting cover-up.
Despite the fact a distraught Phil himself swears blind she didn’t.
This is cancel culture at its finest.
Last week, three public figures came out to warn against the rise of this pernicious phenomenon.
One which has done in for authors like Roald Dahl, JK Rowling, Enid Blyton and Ian Fleming.
Lyricist Tim Rice, comedian Tim Minchin and Two Ronnies writer Andy Hamilton have railed against it.
The latter said: “I’ve a long-term concern which is so much of humour, so many classic jokes, so much of what we joke about are very serious topics, like death, marriage, relationships failing, illness.
“Part of it is that jokes are sort of a relief valve. So a lot of it is about laughing in the face of life.”
Just ask any military man (or woman). They revel in gallows humour, it’s a coping mechanism for the horrors of war, and to deprive them of this would be, frankly, inhumane.
Last week gender-critical academic Kathleen Stock gave a speech at the Oxford Union which saw trans rights protesters disrupt it after five minutes.
Professor Stock gave the address at the famous debating club after activists labelled her “transphobic and trans-exclusionary” and tried to get the event cancelled before she’d even uttered a word.
Where will this end?
If we keep cancelling each other, who will be left to write the books, perform the plays, crack the gags, paint the paintings or, in the case of Holly and Phil, sit on the Ikea sofa.
To paraphrase Taylor Swift — another victim of cancel culture — we all just need to calm down. Please.
IN years to come scientists will study Victoria Beckham’s genes and determine the elixir to everlasting beauty and youth.
Failing that, she will write a book detailing the hundreds of thousands of pounds spent on cosmetic work.
Because the former Spice Girl, 50 next year, is LITERALLY LOOKING YOUNGER BY THE MONTH.
Over the weekend she posted this photo of herself beside 28-year-old daughter-in-law Nicola Peltz.
She looks younger than poor Ms Peltz. (Which must really wound the young American).
Of course, thanks to my pal who used to work with Mrs Beckham, I am fully aware of precisely what procedures, medical or otherwise, may have taken place.
Alas The Sun lawyers won’t let me list them. The dullards.
So let’s just say, whatever she’s doing, it’s working. And I want in.
LASSO WORTH WATCH
THE greatest TV series ever concluded last week: Ted Lasso.
A show, about fictional premier league team Richmond AFC, that makes you simultaneously laugh and sob.
In addition, has a programme ever had more brilliant or/and weird celebrity cameos?
Most recently, Pep Guardiola took time out from winning the double to make an unlikely, and slightly awks, appearance (Robert De Niro, he is not), while other famous faces to have appeared include Gary Lineker, Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield (pre-feudgate), Jeff Stelling, Thierry Henry, Chris Kamara and, er, referee Mike Dean.
If you don’t have Apple TV, try the seven-day free trial and binge the whole thing in one go. Then cancel it. Sorry, Apple.
WE all know gender reveal parties and baby showers are the devil’s work.
Even writing that sentence made me gag.
Now, it turns out, hen parties and stag dos are joining them in the narcissistic ranks of commer -cialised daylight rob- bery.
According to a new survey, the average weekend costs £779 in the UK and £1,208 for anything abroad.
That’s a two-for-one hangover then: Financial and spiritual.
BASSET BULGES
ON Friday night I went to the pub and was greeted by a lovely, not-so-svelte dog called Kenneth.
Poor, shamefaced Kenneth was wearing a badge bearing the words: “Do not feed me.”
Oh, the ignominy.
Turns out the basset hound, the landlord’s canine son, is regularly fed titbits (pigs ears, burgers, chips, whitebait) from punters and has been diagnosed as “morbidly obese” by the vet.
We’ve all been there, Kenneth.
KUDOS to Kim Cattrall. The Sex and the City star – four years off 70 – right, admits to dabbling with Botox, fillers and the “right surgeon” to keep her looking the way she does.
Which makes a change from most female stars, who insist their strangely unmovable foreheads are down to mineral water and Crème de la Mer alone.
Refreshingly, she also confirms it takes a LOT of money to keep her looking this way, a reminder not everyone can look 34 for the rest of time.
She says: “I’m in my sixties now and I’m all about battling aging in every way I can.
“There are fillers, Botox, there’s so many different things that you can investigate and try and see if it’s for you. But yes, if you have the money and, more importantly, the right surgeon.
“It can’t be emphasised enough. You want to look like you.”
KILLER IS OUT OF LINE
IT is official: We have reached peak compensation culture.
A teenage killer is suing the Home Office, claiming his electronic tag is ruining his social life.
Slovakian-born Lukas Makula, from Leicester, has breached his bail conditions 13 times, had 40 convictions for violent behaviour in a young offenders’ institution and is at “high risk” of causing harm.
Yet the animal – imprisoned for the manslaughter of an elderly man – reckons WE are breaching HIS human rights.
How, how, how is this allowed to go to court?
AN unfortunate headline from Sky News t’other day: “One legged crime boss jailed after five years on the run.”
Hobble might have been more accurate.
MY PET IS BEST BUNKY
FINALLY some science I can get on board with.
A professor, a sensible-sounding chap called Russell Foster, says separate bedrooms is the key to happy marriage.
He reckons snorers should move next door (bedroom, not house), saying: “It’s the beginning of a new relationship where both of you ideally would be happier, more responsive to each other, less impulsive, less irritable.”
Quite right.
Bed-sharing* has been the bane of my adult relationshippy life (and probably why I remain a confirmed bachelor aged 41).
Why would ANYONE want to lose sleep beside a thrashing, snorting, farting human being? Madness.
*With the exception of miniature dachshund Dora, who is like a little furry sleep angel, and happily shares my Egyptian cotton, high threadcount sheets, nightly.