F-bombs, starry guests and candour: What we can expect from Holly Willoughby’s YouTube comeback

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Holly Willoughby is back on our screens almost three years after her This Morning exit – and this time, she’s doing things a little differently. Once the darling of ITV daytime, Willoughby has shunned traditional broadcasters and is launching her comeback on her own terms, swapping mainstream media for YouTube.

The 45-year-old’s new show, Holly Willoughby Together, is being billed as a single original series but sounds a lot more like five. The programme comprises of a quintet of Together strands (get ready to read that word a lot): Talk Together, “honest in-depth conversations with people who’ve been through extraordinary things”; Cook Together, where Willoughby makes her favourite recipes “or learns from the person who knows it best”; Look Good Together for fashion and beauty; Better Together, with “practical guidance from leading experts around the everyday challenges”; and Hang Out Together, where she’ll be joined by celebrity guests.

If it sounds familiar, then that’s because it is. Together’s many pillars certainly seem Meghan Markle-esque, and simultaneously like a glossier, less tabloidy version of This Morning. And the show’s sleek, purpose-built, home-style set certainly evokes both too.

Two episodes of Together will arrive each week, with the first dropping on Tuesday 28 July. A teaser trailer released today (21 July) sees Willoughby lean into her #relatable side, ditching her semi-formal This Morning wardrobe in favour of jeans, blouses and ballet pumps, referencing OnlyFans and dropping the F-word.

Perhaps having learned a vital lesson from the former Duchess of Sussex’s Netflix series With Love, Meghan, Willoughby said ahead of Together’s launch that she had to “unlearn all the telly stuff” and be more “normal” on screen. Fingers crossed she’ll manage what Meghan didn’t, and strike a relatable tone.

Together is being produced in partnership with Hungry Bear Media, which is run by Willoughby’s TV executive husband, Dan Baldwin. Numbers-wise, the move to digital makes sense. In January, analysis revealed YouTube had overtaken both ITV and the BBC on audience reach. Willoughby has already built a substantial following online, with 7.9 million Instagram followers – easily eclipsing This Morning’s 2.9 million and ITV’s dismal 800,000. She’s already had some success flying solo in the digital world too, having taken a leaf out of Gwyneth Paltrow’s book by starting a Goop-style lifestyle brand, Wylde Moon, in 2021.

Willoughby’s semi-formal ‘This Morning’ wardrobe has been banished (PA)

But there’s a bigger motive for the star. Willoughby’s exit from daytime came after a tumultuous period for This Morning, as her final months on the show were overshadowed when her former BFF Phillip Schofield was sacked in June 2023, after he admitted to having a relationship with a much younger colleague while he was still married.

Willoughby distanced herself from Schofield as the controversy unfolded, revealing he had denied the affair when she had previously confronted him in private. As she presented the first episode of This Morning since the story made the headlines, she opened the show with her gravely serious yet instantly memeable “Firstly, are you OK?” monologue.

The presenter then reached her tipping point in October of the same year, quitting the show days after a man was charged over a plot to kidnap, rape and murder her. In July 2024, he was jailed for life with a minimum term of 16 years.

The first episode drops on 28 July (PA)

Addressing the terrifying case for the first time, Willoughby this week told Vogue UK: “When something like that happens, suddenly everything else gets put into perspective and, you know what? I don’t fear what people think because I know what real fear feels like.”

“Not everybody’s going to like what you do, that’s just a fact,” she continued. “I’m not for everybody. On this new platform, people find you and come to you because they’re interested in you. I’m not being forced upon anyone.”

So, will it all work? The upside, or downside, of YouTube’s immediately available viewing figures means it won’t take long to find out.