How BBC's presenting duo Selina Scott and Frank Bough HATED each other

May 24, 2023

The original TV breakfast bust-up: How BBC’s presenting duo Selina Scott and Frank Bough HATED each other – as ITV insists Philip Schofield’s This Morning exit was mutually agreed

Selina Scott and Frank Bough worked together on Breakfast Time for three years

On the face of it, they were the successful double act who helped to make breakfast television a mainstay of family homes up and down the country.

From its launch in 1983, Selina Scott and Frank Bough had a successful three years together on the BBC’s Breakfast Time, the forerunner to the corporation’s current morning news show.

But whilst they could appear to get along in front of the cameras, they did not get on in person, and Scott revealed earlier this year how he carried out a ‘campaign’ to ‘undermine’ her on air.

Her wide-ranging piece in the Daily Mail about his antics came after she told how Bough, whom she branded a ‘misogynist’, was a ‘nightmare’ to work with and even boasted about his manhood at work.

The pair’s working relationship came to an end in 1986, when Scott accepted another presenting role, two years before Bough was sacked after being found to have taken cocaine with prostitutes in a Mayfair hotel.

Fast-forward nearly four decades to this month and the country has been gripped by Philip Schofield’s departure from ITV show This Morning following the breakdown in his relationship with co-presenter Holly Willoughby.

ITV insisted today that Phil’s exit from the show was mutually ‘agreed’ with them, following speculation that he was axed amid a feud with Holly.

On the face of it, they were the successful double act who helped to make breakfast television a mainstay of family homes up and down the country. From its launch in 1983, Selina Scott and Frank Bough had a successful three years together on the BBC’s Breakfast Time, the forerunner to the corporation’s current morning news show

Bough and Scott (centre) are seen with the rest of the original presenting line up on Breakfast Time, the forerunner to BBC Breakfast. Among them was David Icke (back right), who is now a notorious conspiracy theorist

But whilst Phil and Holly are known to have once been good friends, Scott and Bough never got on.

Writing to explain why she did not accept the BBC’s invitation to appear as a guest on BBC Breakfast in January to mark its 40th anniversary celebrations, Ms Scott said much of her time on the ‘hideous’ red leather sofa made her ‘feel like I was a combatant in a war zone.’

She told how Bough invited her to his home shortly after she was ‘poached’ by the BBC.

Afterwards, she said he gave an interview to a national newspaper where he told readers: ‘I wanted to see if I liked her.’

‘Seasoned observers of Frank, a BBC lifer who knew its Machiavellian ways, understood that he was ‘auditioning’ me to see if I was suitably pliable and not a professional threat to him,’ Scott wrote.

‘If he didn’t like what he saw, he would signal to the suits on the sixth floor and my breakfast TV career would be toast before it began.

‘It was the opening shot in Frank’s campaign to undermine me on air. If he felt as though he wasn’t drawing enough focus, he would butt into my interviews, disrupting my guest’s train of thought and leaving me scrambling awkwardly to try to move on to the next section in time.

‘His tactics left me confused and unhappy until, eventually, I realised his game was to always appear the dominant partner to the viewers.’

The original presenting line up of Breakfast Time, which would become BBC Breakfast, included Frank Bough (centre), Selina Scott (right) and David Icke (top right). Also pictured: Debbie Rix and weather forecaster Francis Wilson

Scott worked with Bough for three years on BBC Breakfast Time before leaving the show

She added that he made a ‘denigrating sexual comment’ about her after ‘seeking to bed’ the then rookie presenter Fern Britton, who went on to front This Morning on ITV.

Scott said she still bristles at how Bough ‘felt compelled to plant his lips’ on her whenever the pair had their photo taken.

She also opened up about the time when Savile refused to answer any more questions until she kissed him on air.

‘I thought Savile repulsive, but to my bosses ratings were sacrosanct and Savile was seen as TV gold dust. He was untouchable,’ she added.

Bough was sacked by the BBC in 1988, a year after he left Breakfast Time to become the presenter of the BBC’s Holiday programme.

He was one of the country’s highest-paid broadcasters, earning a reputed £200,000 a year, but a Sunday newspaper revealed he had taken cocaine with prostitutes in a Mayfair hotel.

Bough was later photographed leaving a sado-masochistic vice den, where he was said to have spent 50 minutes in a ‘torture chamber’.

The following day he went on TV with his wife and said shamefacedly: ‘I am feeling exceedingly stupid. I bitterly regret many of the things in my life, and if only I could undo them I would.’

The star passed away in 2020 aged 87, having largely disappeared from public life since his downfall.

Along with Bough and Scott, the original presenting line up in 1983 – when the show was called Breakfast Time – also included Nick Ross and ‘Green Goddess’ fitness guru Diana Moran.

The likes of Kirsty Wark, Jeremy Paxman, and the late Jill Dando also featured in the 1980s.

David Icke, a former footballer, worked as a sports presenter on the show – before he began claiming that the world is controlled by lizard-like creatures masquerading as world leaders.

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