Holly Willoughby is making a huge mistake

So, Holly Willoughby is back – and this time, she’s doing things her own way. The former This Morning presenter isn’t returning to ITV, the channel she has been synonymous with for the past two decades but quit in late 2024, nor is she shifting loyalties to another broadcaster – some might have thought she was a shoo-in for the Strictly presenting gig. No, Willoughby’s reappearance will be on YouTube, where she will launch her own channel and show, Together. The trailer for the twice-a-week series is as you’d expect, all jolly hockey sticks and convivial. It shows Willoughby trying on a tracksuit with comedian Joanne McNally and making her own sausages (an activity no doubt chosen for its NSFW visuals – “I feel like I’m on OnlyFans!”). She wears jeans rather than her This Morning wardrobe of designer midi-dresses and even slips in the F-word. This is Willoughby in relaxed relatability mode, and it’s impossible not to draw comparisons to Meghan Markle’s smarmy Netflix series (which, despite running for two series and a Christmas special, didn’t even break the streamer’s top 300 most popular shows; Netflix has not renewed the partnership). It might look like a smart, bold move. YouTube is where the real money is made; it’s free to upload your own content and the ad revenue on successful channels can be astronomical (the biggest YouTuber in the world, Mr Beast, is thought to make tens of millions a year). There’s also the fact that Willoughby – and her TV exec husband Dan Baldwin, who is producing Together – will have sole creative control over the show. But in reality, it’s a huge mistake. There are practical hurdles: expecting her audience, who congregate on Instagram, Facebook, and most crucially, traditional television, to jump to an entirely new platform just to watch her show is a huge ask. YouTube might be the second most-watched service in the UK behind only the BBC, but its viewers skew young and male – not the sort of people who are likely to watch Willoughby try on dresses. There’s also the fact that the whole series has been pre-recorded. What we love about This Morning is the tension created by the live TV – anything could happen, and it often does: Alison Hammond accidentally pushing a model into the Thames, Willoughby unable to control her giggles at something Gino D’Acampo has mispronounced, the hosts being more than a little disheveled after a post-Baftas night on the tiles. By comparison, Together risks feeling too curated, controlled and – for lack of a better phrase – put together. As a result, the swearing and the forced casualness will feel confected to the point of cringe. Unlike ‘This Morning’, Willoughby’s show has been pre-recorded (Photo: Karis Kennedy/Holly Willoughby Together/PA Wire) Which brings me to Willoughby herself. I fear that in launching a show centred entirely around herself, the presenter has fatally overestimated just how much influence she has. In her This Morning heyday, Willoughby was a proper celebrity – she was a friendly morning face for millions, expertly switching from chatting about that day’s headlines to commentating on a catwalk of supermarket clothes. But both her time out of the spotlight and the way her tenure of This Morning ended have done damage. Her squeaky-clean image first took a bashing when she and long-time co-presenter Phillip Schofield were caught jumping the queue to see the deceased Queen Elizabeth II lying in state, apparently skipping past the people who had waited for up to 24 hours. “Queue gate” became a national scandal, and the presenters were soon forced to address it, defending their visit as part of their jobs as broadcasters to report on the experience. Nevertheless, the damage was done, and both Willoughby and Schofield realised they were not bulletproof when it came to the public’s affections. Then Schofield was sacked after news of an “unwise but not illegal” affair with a younger colleague came to light, Willoughby found herself in the firing line. Despite her confirming that she did not know about the affair and that Schofield had assured her the rumours were not true, still the gossip focused on what she did or didn’t know. In a celebrity landscape that increasingly demands transparency and accountability, Willoughby found herself on the back foot. Worse still, her handling of the situation upon her return to This Morning bordered on parody. ” Right. Deep breath. Firstly, are you OK?” she asked us down the camera, as if our own personal lives had been shaken by Schofield’s absence. The moment became a meme and turned Willoughby and her self-centered self-seriousness into a laughing stock. Behind the scenes, things were much worse for Willoughby than most knew – her stalker was arrested for plotting to abduct and murder the presenter in October 2024. One week later, she announced she wouldn’t be returning to This Morning. Willoughby left ‘This Morning’ in 2024 (Photo: Isabel Infantes/PA Wire) Perhaps this terrifying incident has helped engender some sympathy. Whether you love her or loath her, there is no denying that it was a traumatic, life-changing thing to go through. In interviews promoting Together she has said that the experience has taught her that she is “very resilient” – a quality she is proving true by returning to public life at all. “If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work. But you have to have a go,” she told press at the Together launch. “What’s the other option? Just sitting scared and never doing a thing again?” Being seen on a regular basis is crucial for someone like Willoughby to maintain her celebrity status. Her time away from the limelight has let her slip from people’s minds – does she really expect an audience to invest in her enough to follow her to a brand-new show after disappearing for a year? Contrary to what it may sound like, I have a soft spot for Willoughby – I think she’s tenacious, very good at her job and there’s a comforting familiarity about her continued presence on our TV screens. But she can also be cloying, overly perfect and falsely accessible – with a net worth of £10 million, she’s hardly a woman of the people. Which side of Willoughby will stand out in Together? I fear the latter, making for the very worst kind of television: a self-serving, smug vanity project. ‘Together’ starts on YouTube on Tuesday 28 July