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BBC presenter Graham Norton has recently defended This Morning presenters Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby after they were slammed by viewers claiming they “queue jumped” to see Queen Elizabeth II lying-in-state. Graham revealed that he felt the pair had done “nothing wrong” but still branded their actions as “foolish”.
Speaking to Nihal Arthanayak on BBC Radio 5 Live on Monday, he revealed that whilst members of the public were queuing there was a separate two-tier system.
This included another line for members of the press and other important figures.
He said: “You could queue jump. Yeah. Now I got offered a queue jump ticket by a friend of mine. He’s an MP and he said, ‘Do you wanna come?’
“And I didn’t say yes. Because I thought if anybody sees me I’ll get it in the neck.”
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Graham continued that Phillip and Holly may have assumed that people “wouldn’t care” about how they got through and added: “I guess that that’s their crime.
“The actual queue jumping? They did nothing wrong. Absolutely nothing wrong. But foolish of them to not think that people would be annoyed.”
Graham then went on to appear on Wednesday’s episode of This Morning where he was in good spirits with the ITV presenting duo.
Holly and Phillip faced immense backlash from This Morning viewers and many who had queued to see the Queen and even went as far as to begin a petition to get them fired from the ITV chat show.
ITV has dismissed the accusations of queue-jumping and has released a statement to defend the pair’s actions.
Holly explained: “Like hundreds of accredited broadcasters and journalists, we were given official permission to access the hall.
“It was strictly for the purpose of reporting on the event for millions of people in the UK, who haven’t been able to visit Westminster in person.
“The rules were that we would be quickly escorted around the edges to a platform at the back, in contrast, those paying respects walked along a carpeted area beside the coffin and were given time to pause.”
Holly continued: “We, of course, respected those rules, however, we realise it may have looked like something else and therefore totally understand the reaction.
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