TV comic Matt Richardson has opened up about his secret feud with Holly Willoughby.
The former Xtra Factor presenter, 34, recalled how a joke he cracked in 2014 during a run-through for a new panel show called Reality Bites sparked tension.
Matt claimed Holly did not like the joke, it was about her close friend Nicole Appleton.
He later revealed that during the 2021 series of Dancing On Ice, ‘they barely spoke.’
He said in a TikTok video: ‘Holly Willoughby doesn’t like me, I don’t think. Many years ago, we are talking 2014, I did a run-through in an office.
‘They were developing a new panel show called Reality Bites and I was maybe going to be a team captain.
‘When they were first developing it, you do run throughs of the show. So we are doing run throughs and one of the people on it was Nicole Appleton.
‘In this panel setting, the host Stephen Mulhern asked her, ‘Why were there three of you on that?’
And I said: ‘Because the three of those in that room add up to one celebrity. It got a laugh in the room, it was clearly a joke, whatever.
‘I then became quite friendly with Nicole. We had a few mutual friends, we used to go out drinking. I’ve been to her house for a party.
Matt then claimed three or four years later, Holly confronted him over the joke.
Nicole, a former member of the pop group All Saints, is a key part of Holly’s inner circle of famous friends, which also includes Emma Bunton.
He went on: ‘Holly comes up to me at something and she’s like, ‘I’ve got a problem with you.
‘She was in the room at the run-through because her husband’s company were making it. She was like, ‘You made a joke about Nicole and it was unacceptable. How dare you?’ I was like, One, it was a joke. Nicole was stood next to me and I went, ‘Did it offend you?’ And she said, ‘No it was fine, I got it, it’s not a problem.’
‘Holly goes, ‘Yeah, but still…’ and had a real go at me, which was really weird. I was being told off by Holly Willoughby in the middle of this members club.
‘I didn’t really see her again until I did Dancing on Ice when we barely spoke because it was Covid and I was training.’
It comes after Holly Willoughby joined her friend Nicole Appleton for a lunch date with pals at 1 Hotel MayFair in London on Friday.
It also comes shortly after reported emerged that Holly is preparing to make her TV comeback with her own Youtube channel, following speculation about a solo project.
