Ben Shephard and Susanna Reid were once forced to apologise after EastEnders legend Patsy Palmer abruptly ended a live interview on Good Morning Britain back in 2021.
The actress, who recently made her long-awaited return to EastEnders, was rather unhappy with the “addict to wellness guru” tagline used during the clip and decided to exit the virtual chat from her home in Malibu, USA.
Patsy shared her upset with the tagline, telling Susanna and Ben: “You know what, I don’t even want to do this interview, because I don’t even want to look what it says at the bottom of that screen. So I am just going to switch off, do a real Piers Morgan, and say it’s not okay to have ‘addict to wellness guru’ on the bottom of the screen.”
Ben, who has since Good Morning Britain in order to host This Morning instead, expressed his regret on-air, as he said: “I’m so sorry about that Patsy, huge apologies. It wasn’t our intention to upset you.”
Susanna, added: “I had no idea that was on the screen. Well, that’s a terrible shame. Our apologies to Patsy. She’s entitled not to do the interview and we carry on.”
Ben further clarified: “Our intention was never to upset Patsy Palmer. We were very keen to talk to her… She has talked in the past, in her book, particularly about her addiction, her stint in rehab… and now she has a wellness brand,” reports the Mirror.
The rather awkward incident came just a couple of weeks after former GMB host Piers Morgan had stormed off set during an argument with weather reporter Alex Beresford as the pair discussed Meghan Markle. During the heated debate, Alex said: “I understand that you don’t like Meghan Markle, you have made it so clear a number of times on this programme.”
He continued: “I understand that you had a personal relationship with Meghan Markle and she cut you off, she’s entitled to cut you off if she wants to. Has she said anything about you since she cut you off? I don’t think she has, but you continue to trash her…” before Piers cut him off.
