They are known for their playful presenting style, and are often left in stitches onscreen.
However things went slightly awry for Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield on Monday’s This Morning, when they called the wrong competition winner – and mistakenly told her she had won £5,000.
Viewers immediately took to Twitter to address the cringe-worthy moment, which resulted in the presenters giving the embarrassed caller £1,000 of her own as an apology.
Oops: Things went awry for Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield on Monday’s This Morning, when they called the wrong competition winner – and mistakenly told her she had won £5,000
The incident kicked off when Holly and Phil called the winner live on air, while Alison Hammond waited outside her door to deliver the good news.
However, things soon became confused when the woman on the phone confessed she could not hear anyone knocking at her house.
Baffled by the hiccup, Philip proceeded to joke: ‘Well… have you moved house?’, causing Holly to giggle.
Having called a ‘Mrs Smithers’ in the studio however, Alison then revealed the winner went by a different name and lived at the house she was outside, meaning the person on the phone had not won the money.
Introducing the real winner onscreen and laughing the moment off, Alison said: ‘Here she is! We rang the wrong winner – there’s someone out there who hasn’t won, sorry love! But you’ve won £5000!’
However, the presenting duo clearly felt horrified by their on-screen gaffe – and immediately ran the incorrect caller back to apologise for getting her hopes up.
Phillip laughed: ‘Oh I just love it when stuff goes wrong! This could be a really bad idea…’ as the phone rang.
Answering for a second time, the ITV presenter sheepishly proceeded to tell the embarrassed caller she had won money of her own, as an apology for the mistake.
He said: ‘It’s Holly and Phil back again, we just wanted to say sorry as we phoned you by mistake, when we were trying to call someone else who had won a competition prize.
‘Then we hung up and felt guilty… so we’d like to say you’ve just won £1000 for Christmas, for no other reason than our guilt!’
Clearly delighted with the news however, the caller erupted into laughter and said: ‘Oh that’s fantastic, thank you so much! Merry Christmas!’
Viewers immediately took to Twitter to express their hilarity at the mistake – deeming the moment ‘TV gold’, but also horrendously awkward.
One kicked things off by writing: ‘Hilarious #thismorning someone is in trouble’ as others added: ‘Awkward moment #ThisMorning phones the wrong person, could’ve rang me!’ and ‘Someone’s definitely getting the sack.’
Further fans chimed in: ‘@hollywills & @Schofe you poor things!’, ‘This is absolutely hilarious, TV gold, they’ve called the wrong person!’ and ‘imagine calling someone on live tv to tell them they have won 5 grand and it’s the wrong person…’
Others admitted they wished they had been called if there was a cash prize involved, adding: ‘I wish #ThisMorning would phone me by mistake! £1000!!! I’m glad they gave her something though, that would have been so mean lol’
‘Now that was fate!!!! Rang the wrong person and she gets £1000 out of it. Glad you did that’
And: ‘They just gave a woman 1k for accidentally phoning the wrong number, that’s amazing’
However, a few viewers were quick to blast the show for not giving her the same £5,000 prize for their own mistake.
One wrote: ‘That poor woman they rang by mistake! Then she got £1000 instead of £5000! I’m sure they could afford to give her the full prize amount!’
Guilty! Viewers immediately took to Twitter to address the cringe-worthy moment, which resulted in the presenters giving the embarrassed caller £1,000 of her own as an apology