Fern Britton has claimed a BBC Breakfast editor once locked her in an office with another boss to berate her after telling her she was ‘awful’ midway through a show.
The TV presenter, 68, said she felt ‘decimated’ by the experience and recalled crying her make-up off before being told she needed to reapply it before leaving.
Recalling the experience, Fern said that after the live show finished she was pulled into the office where she was ‘shredded’ by two editors.
Fern appeared on the Full Disclosure podcast with James O’Brien, where she discussed the ‘very, very difficult’ period of her career.
During the appearance Fern names the show as being This Morning, but a representative later clarified that she was referring to BBC Breakfast, formerly known as Breakfast Time.
Discussing her exit from the show, Fern said she left the programme because she was ‘unhappy’ and felt she was ‘hated’ by her colleagues.
When questioned about her exit from the show after 10 years, she said: ‘I left This Morning because I was very unhappy there. The editor hated me, Frank [Bough] hated me. It was made very, very difficult for me.
Fern Britton has claimed a BBC Breakfast editor once locked her in an office with another boss to berate her after telling her she was ‘awful’ midway through a show
‘There was one morning when the editor walked in at 8 o’clock sort of halfway through the morning and he came through the forest of cameras and he said to me, you are terrible, you are awful, now sit down there and do another hour.
‘After the show he called me into his office and locked it, he was in there with his deputy editor and they just shredded me and I cried and cried and cried.
‘It was a Friday and he said you’re not leaving this office until you put some make-up on. I said “well it’s in the bag, on the desk” and he went and he got my bag and I had to put my make-up on in front of him.
James asked: ‘Because he didn’t want everyone to know you’d been crying? Or..’
Fern concluded: ‘What he did was really bad, it really decimated me.’
Fern worked on the BBC’s breakfast television programme Breakfast Time from 1983 to 1984. She was part of the original presenting team when the show launched.
Breakfast Time changed to Breakfast News in October 1989 and then BBC Breakfast in October 2000.
On Breakfast Time, Fern worked alongside several well-known presenters, including Frank and Selina Scott.
Fern said she had a difficult introduction to broadcasting after being drafted in on the ’80s morning show.
She recalled: ‘When I first met Frank I was invited to meet them all for lunch because I was the new person joining the team. Frank was on my right hand side, the editor was on my left, and we got to the part where everyone was finishing their cigarettes and stubbing them out on the pudding plate, as you could then.
‘[Frank] leant back in his chair with his fag, turned his knees to me and he went, “Well, I wonder how long it will be before I’m having an affair with you? Because I do have a very big c**k.”
‘That was the way it was. I’m not saying it’s right, but that’s how it was.’
Fern pictured (right) beside Frank Bough her co-host on BBC Breakfast (pictured Debbie Rix, Francis Wilson, Selina Scott, Frank Bough, Mike Smith, Fern Britton)
Fern says former co-host Selina also struggled to work with Bough during her time on the show.
‘It was difficult with Frank Bough,’ she said. ‘She [Selina] found it difficult with Frank Bough… she was getting trounced by him.
‘[One day] he was watching her on a film, and I was sitting next to him that morning. He was watching her cycling across the Highlands or something, and he said “Look at her, she even rides a bike with her knees together.”
After her time on the BBC, Fern moved to ITV as the regular host of This Morning alongside Phillip Schofield.
Ahead of Fern’s This Morning departure in 2009, she famously fell out with her co-host Phillip and they haven’t spoken since.
Phillip claimed in his autobiography their relationship was ‘beyond repair’.
It was claimed at the time she felt ‘undervalued by ITV’ and that she was ‘living in Phil’s shadow’.
Despite this, Fern in recent years that said she had ‘great fun’ hosting This Morning with her former pal whilst speaking about his own exit from the breakfast show.
Speaking to Saga, she said: ‘It brought up a lot of mixed emotions. The years we worked together were mostly great fun and we were a very good partnership, which I can remember with fondness.
‘I knew how much he loved his job and cared deeply for his public perception. It must have been a terribly difficult time for him and his family.’
In 2022, Fern ended their long-running feud when she congratulated Phillip in a video message to celebrate his 40th anniversary in television.
Last year, the mother-of-four returned to screens, appearing on Celebrity Big Brother alongside Louis Walsh and Sharon Osbourne.
Phillip stepped down from This Morning and subsequently all TV projects after he admitted to an ‘unwise but not illegal’ affair with a 20-year-old crew member on the daytime show.
Holly Willoughby, who took over hosting duties on This Morning from Fern, released a statement at the time saying she had felt ‘hurt’ by his ‘lies’.
Holly stepped down from presenting This Morning after 14 years on the show due to a terrifying kidnap threat and subsequently took time out from the spotlight.
Since leaving This Morning, Fern became a successful author, publishing a number of Sunday Times best selling novels – as well as appearing in various TV projects.
She presented BBC series Fern Britton Meets, as well as The Big Allotment Challenge, and The Watercolour Challenge, and appearing on Celebrity Big Brother in 2024.
In 2020, Fern announced that she had ‘unexpectedly’ split from her husband of 20 years, fellow TV star and celebrity chef Phil Vickery.
Speaking to Good Housekeeping in 2023, Fern said she has ‘entered a new phase of her life’, because she is no longer married and her children are now adults.
She explained: ‘It’s as if this whole other world has opened up. I never thought this would happen; I didn’t expect to be 65 and single and really relaxed.’
Back in 2022, Fern’s former husband Phil was spotted kissing her former best friend Lorraine Stanton – leaving Fern ‘heartbroken and dumbstruck’.
Fern was one of the co-presenters on This Morning between 1999-2009
Ahead of Fern’s This Morning departure in 2009, she famously fell out with her co-host Phillip Schofield famously fell out and haven’t spoken since (pictured together on the show)
A source told Daily Mail at the time that Fern was left embarrassed by the news becoming public so made a statement in order to minimise the situation and ‘stop it getting out control’.
Fern has since revealed she has been making changes in her life both physically and mentally after feeling like she wasn’t doing enough to look after herself.
The former This Morning host explained: ‘About a year or so ago, I realised that I wasn’t looking after myself – physically or mentally.
‘I wasn’t doing exercise, I was eating too much and suddenly, it was like I flipped a switch and I thought, “No, you’ve got to look after yourself’.
‘So I started doing that, and it’s given me a new sort of energy. I do a bit of yoga and I’ve started doing the Couch to 5k running app.
‘I’m very slow – I’ve got arthritis in one of my knees and I’m about to have a shoulder replacement – but I just thought, “It’s only three miles, come on!” I’m not intending to run a long marathon or beat anybody, but I do enjoy the fitness side of it.’
