Holly Willoughby is facing an uphill battle to attract viewers to her YouTube series Together, which is being billed as a 'home for real conversations'.

The show got off to a shaky start when it launched last month. One of its guests, comedienne Katherine Ryan, believes 'traumatised' Willoughby, 45, is struggling to gain an audience because the public still holds a grudge against the former This Morning star for scandals including 'queue-gate'.

In 2022, Willoughby and her co-host Phillip Schofield were accused of skipping the queue to see Queen Elizabeth's coffin lying in state.

Ryan, 43, who appeared on the second episode of Together, tells me at the launch of a West End play: 'I think she's getting a hard time because she might have jumped the queue to see the deceased queen with someone who turned out to be a bit of a creep.

'People don't realise this sometimes in a public situation, someone with that much profile gets whisked away and they don't even know what's happening.'

Canadian-born Ryan, who appears on the Channel 4 panel show 8 Out Of 10 Cats, believes misogyny has fuelled the backlash against the mother-of-three. 

Referring to Schofield, who resigned from ITV in 2023 after admitting to an extramarital affair with a young male co-worker, she said: 'I think what happens is we get blamed for the actions of men. Was she having an illicit relationship with a junior male colleague or was the man doing that? Was she lying to her wife about the state of the relationship or was it a man?'

Ryan continued: 'And then this guy tried to kill her. So I think she's been associated with something she didn't do and traumatised by men.'

Gavin Plumb was jailed for life in 2024 for plotting to kidnap, rape and murder Willoughby.

However, Ryan remains optimistic about Willoughby's new career path. 'I hope a new audience gets to see behind the breakfast television veneer of who Holly Willoughby is, because she's fun,' she says.

Club closes to members for party... and bags '£1million'

As summer yields to autumn, one London club can celebrate a bumper harvest.

I refer to Hurlingham, whose 13,000 members pay up to £1,400 a year to saunter across 42 perfectly manicured south-west London acres and occasionally spy the Princess of Wales dropping off one of her children for tennis lessons.

But this summer there has been another bonus – one which has set Hurlingham's cash register singing like a nightingale in Berkeley Square, albeit rather more controversially. 

I can disclose that the decision to close the club to members, to the fury of some, on one day in June so French fashion house Hermes could hold a 'very British garden party' – with society figures such as Emma Thynn, Marchioness of Bath, and Martha, Lady Sitwell, among the guests – has swollen its coffers significantly.

'Hurlingham took three times as much for letting Hermes host its party as it did for the Giorgio Armani Tennis Classic in June, a four-day event,' a London boulevardier tells me. Hurlingham and Hermes decline to comment, but I understand that the club bagged 'around £1million' for the deal. Game, set and match!

Suranne's a fan of service dog Daisy

Hopefully fans of Suranne Jones weren't too offended when the Gentleman Jack star skipped past those waiting for a selfie at BFI Southbank this week to stroke black labrador autism assistance dog Daisy.

'Dogs are the most important thing,' Suranne, 48, tells me at the preview for series three of the BBC thriller Vigil.

She is the proud owner of two dachshunds.

 over Ibiza! The Spanish party island may be gearing up for its closing parties in September, but the summer revelry is far from over in Malta.

I hear the sun-soaked Mediterranean archipelago is set to become the next playground for London's glamorous beau monde, with a glittering crowd descending on the island next week for the star-studded launch party of the Hard Rock Hotel Malta in St Julian's, which opened its doors last month.

No festival for Norway royal as king dies

A UK wellness festival has been gearing up to host a royal couple yearning to share insights into love and spirituality.

But the Om and Bass event – offering yoga and meditation workshops as well as 'conscious' raves – is going to have to do without Princess Martha Louise of Norway, 54, and her husband, Durek Verrett, a shaman who talks freely about his bisexuality and contact with aliens.

The Princess is mourning her father, King Harald, who died yesterday aged 89.

And adding to their troubles, Durek, 51, underwent a kidney transplant this week, ruling out his attendance at next weekend's festival at Braziers Park in Oxfordshire.

A representative of Om and Bass said: 'We are sending them all our love and healing energy during [Durek's] recovery, and we look forward to welcoming them to Om and Bass another time.'

My lips are sealed, but while at All Points East in London's Victoria Park last Saturday, I spotted a prime-time the VIP section.

It was to no avail – and it appears the esteemed broadcaster might want to brush up on his flirting skills. The snapper didn't look remotely impressed.

Meghan ally: UK move could wreck marriage

Ugly Betty actress and social media star Fumi Desalu-Vold delivered a brutal warning to the Duchess of Sussex before the family arrived in the UK on Wednesday, urging her to think again.

'It will break up your marriage and you will end up going back [to the US],' she said in a video posted online. 'Whatever the reasons you left six years ago, not only have they not changed, but they have magnified.'

The former model, who is one of Meghan's most prominent cheerleaders, added: 'Maybe it's linked to health concerns about the King, but Meghan, you haven't even arrived and look at the chaos.

'For your mental health, emotional health and physical health, I would reconsider.'

Nailed it: Nathalie's look for Notting Hill

Locals may be fleeing from Notting Hill Carnival this weekend, which is expected to attract a million revellers, but Nathalie Emmanuel is heading straight into the chaos.

The Game of Thrones star, 37, has had her nails painted to mark 60 years of Europe's largest street party.

In a picture she posted online, her thumbnails can be seen bearing the event's initials, 'NHC' and '60'. Nathalie tells me: 'I absolutely love Carnival.'

Bill Nighy famously took Yorkshire Tea and Marmite to India when filming The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.

So does the faintest trace of those home comforts scent his clothes? If so, it might unravel a mystery that's puzzling the Oscar-nominated actor.

'A woman the other day – she was from somewhere overseas – came up and said, 'You're so English,' Nighy, 76, tells me at a preview of his new film & Sons at the Curzon cinema in Mayfair. 'I'm like, 'What's so English about me?'

The Love Actually star says the same thing happened in Rome a little while ago.

'A young woman ran up, and said, 'You look so English',' he sighs, insisting that he didn't look 'particularly English' on that occasion. 'Everything I was wearing was from somewhere else...'

Rihanna sent James Corden a voice note asking him to join the 2025 film Smurfs – but little did the pop star know he isn't a fan of this mode of communication.

'I honestly believe that the leaving of a voice note is the most selfish act,' says Corden. 'What you're saying is, 'I don't have time to text but you have time to listen.'

The comedian's Gavin and Stacey co-star Ruth Jones is also a culprit, and he has blasted her voice memos as 'so annoying'.