Holly Willoughby admits she broke down after watching Phillip Schofield discuss his sexuality

Holly Willoughby admits she was reduced to tears after watching close friend Phillip Schofield opened up about coming to terms with his sexuality on The One Show. 

The married presenter, whose autobiography Life’s What You Make It was released on Thursday, chatted to the BBC show about the internal conflict he faced before coming out as gay in February. 

And This Morning co-host Holly, 39, admits she welled up as he admitted the pressure that came with hosting their daily show while keeping his sexuality a closely guarded secret almost resulted in him having a breakdown. 

Emotional: Holly Willoughby admits she was reduced to tears after watching close friend Phillip Schofield opened up about coming to terms with his sexuality on The One Show

In an Instagram video shared with followers on Thursday, she told him: ‘You talking on The One Show last night made me cry because I’ve never actually heard you say that.’

Holly also took the opportunity to promote Phillip’s new book, a candid account of his life, career, and the decision to come out very publicly on national television. 

Holding a hardback copy of the autobiography, she admitted she had purposely refrained from reading any passages ahead of its publication  – including anything that related to her. 

Candid: The presenter, whose autobiography Life’s What You Make It was released on Thursday, chatted to the BBC show about the conflict he faced before coming out as gay

She said: ‘I’m not reading my bits. It’s really hard in my household to sit down and read a book in my house but it’s half term next week so this is my plan. 

‘However everyone I know have gone through and found the bits that you spoke about. I’ve resisted all urges and temptations. 

‘In fact today, any bits that I’ve seen in the press are the first stuff that I’ve read.’  

Moving: Holly admits she welled up as he admitted the pressure that came with keeping his sexuality a closely guarded secret almost resulted in him having a breakdown

Speaking on The One Show, Phillip admitted Holly was the first person at work he told about his sexuality and he met up with her in a London bar to discuss how they would handle his coming out on the show.

He said: ‘[Holly was] absolutely vital, couldn’t have done it with anyone else, I wouldn’t have wanted anyone else to be sat beside me.

‘We had a big lead up, Holly was one of the first people I told when I knew what I had to do, she is such a wise person.

‘She has got such a calm sensitive aura to her, at home everyone was saying it’ll be fine and Holly was saying at work, ‘it’ll be fine’, she was the only one that knew at that time at work.’  

Buy this book: Holly took to Instagram on Thursday to promote Phillip’s new autobiography, Life’s What You Make It 

Phillip admitted he knew there would be a ‘massive amount of scrutiny’ on him after he came out.

He said: ‘We had to figure out how to do something like that, it had to be public. I knew there would be a massive amount of scrutiny.

‘I said to Holly: ‘I’ll do it on a Thursday morning and then ill go and you carry on,’ and we were in a bar in London secretly having this meeting and she said: ‘Are you joking? There’s no chance that you leave and I carry on.’

‘She said: ‘No, we’ll do it on a Friday and ask Ruth and Eamonn if we can knick 10 minutes from their show, so we do it and then both leave together.’ ‘

Exciting: Holding a hardback copy of the autobiography, she admitted she had purposely refrained from reading any passages ahead of its publication – including anything that related to her

Admission: Phillip made the decision to come out earlier this year as he shared an emotional Instagram statement with his followers, before being interviewed by co-host Holly Willoughby just moments later (pictured at the time)