Richard Madeley reacts to idea of Judy having affair with AI
The former presenter claims when the pair were initially fronting the ITV show, which they did between 1998-2001, she was often overlooked and sidelined in favour of her spouse when it came to “serious” news.
“There was certainly sexism when I started working on This Morning,” she recalled. “The assumption was that because Richard was the man, he was more suitable to deliver a serious newsflash.
“It made me laugh but it also made me furious. We fought a lot of that.”
However, the author continued: “Because we had each other’s backs, we soon stopped that. We made the programme 100 per cent equal.”
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She believes that not much has changed and it’s still harder for women who are working on serious news programmes.
“Men are still seen as being more authoritative, more dominant,” she insisted. “It doesn’t mean they are any better than the women. Women often have a much more original mind and can assess people in a different and better way than men can,” the start stated.
Judy, 75, who was the first female news reporter at Anglia Television in the Seventies, also waded in on the future of This Morning with the departure of both Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield.
“I did not recognise the world that people were saying This Morning had become when all that happened and Phillip left,” she suggested, referring to claims of a toxic culture. “It simply wasn’t like that when we were there.”
“I couldn’t understand why Phillip had to go,” she added, saying she sent him a couple of emails after “telling him to keep his chin up and wishing him luck”.
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Judy, who is now a best-selling author, has completely finished with TV. “I’ve got absolutely no interest in it at all now,” she said. “I mean, it was a fabulous career, I loved it.
“Well, I loved most of it. And it was fascinating. I met some amazing people and it was well-paid. But I did it for 30-odd years and the kind of TV I was doing was full-on, it was live and it completely sucks up your life.
“As a mother, I just got fed up of it. I wanted my own life instead of one that needed me to be in a studio at seven o’clock in the morning.”
She also recently told Saga magazine: “For 13 years Richard and I hosted This Morning but I will no longer watch it, and won’t appear on there to talk about my book.”
Judy is currently promoting her latest book Roseland, a sequel to her first, Eloise, which is about a family saga set in Cornwall, exploring family dynamics and fractured relationships.
Express.co.uk has contacted This Morning for comment.
Roseland by Judy Finnigan is published by Sphere, priced £20. Available now.
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