Eamonn Holmes has hit out at ITV over his axe from This Morning, claiming that he wasn't told the reasons he was leaving the show.
The veteran presenter, who now works for controversial channel GB News, has spoken to the Daily Mail's latest Weekend issue where he stated he had "no idea" that show bosses wanted him and Ruth Langsford to leave.
"No one explained anything to me," he claimed. "I'm all for TV companies being able to choose who works for them, but it would be nice if you were told why you were going.
"They're sly. They didn't want to announce that I'd been dropped because it would adversely affect audience figures, so they made it look as if I'd walked away from them rather than the other way round.
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"They had a chat with my agent and announced that I was going to GB News when they'd done no more than ask if I'd be interested in joining them. I'm not going to have myself derided as some sort of has-been. I may be male and pale but I'm still at the top of my game."
He also accused the show's bosses of being "hypocritical", claiming that "the diversity is only on screen" and that management is only made up of middle-aged white men, after Alison Hammond and Dermot O'Leary became the new co-hosts.
A spokesperson for ITV has denied Eamonn's accusations, telling Digital Spy: "This isn't a version of events that we recognise and as we have said before, we wish Eamonn all of the very best.
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"As we have laid out in our Diversity Acceleration plan, we are committed to improving representation both on and off screen and we publicly report on our progress against our commitments and targets."
A source close to the show has also stated that Eamonn and Ruth were made aware of plans to introduce Alison and Dermot as main presenters well in advance, and that Eamonn chose to leave for a new job.
This Morning airs on weekdays from 10am on ITV.
Joe Anderton is a freelance news writer and resident Welsh person at Digital Spy, having worked there since 2016.
In his time he's covered a host of live events, interviewed celebrities big and small and crowbarred a countless amount of great/awful (delete as appropriate) puns into articles.
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