Fiona Phillips reveals she was paid less than Eamonn Holmes on GMTV
Fiona Phillips has said she was paid less than her GMTV co-host Eamonn Holmes – despite being dubbed the "queen of breakfast TV".
Writing in her Daily Mirror column, the former breakfast show anchor said that she was "a relative pauper in relation to my on-screen king, Eamonn Holmes".
Phillips, 57, added: "Monetarily I was well adrift of my on-screen partner who also had 'perks' that I clearly wasn't deemed worthy of."
The mother-of-two also said that her pregnancy was deemed a "nuisance" and "an inconvenience" by TV bosses.
"I even had to fight for maternity pay after being told by bosses when I broke it to them that I was pregnant that 'viewers don't like seeing pregnant women on TV, especially early in the morning'," she wrote.
She said she was also told "you'll have to go once it shows too much", but stayed until she was eight months' pregnant, by opting for a "slimming" wardrobe.
Last year, Holmes, whose early-morning credits also include Sunrise and a stint returning to the breakfast sofa on Good Morning Britain, was named the best breakfast show host of all time.
Philips, however, said that last year, for the first time in her 30-odd-year career, she "agreed to sign up for a job, only after seeking assurance that I was to be paid the same as my male colleague".
Her comments follow news earlier this week that ITN pays its male staff on average 20 per cent more than its female staff, which is almost twice the gender pay gap of the BBC. Meanwhile, it was reported that Claire Foy was paid less for her starring role in The Crown than her co-star Matt Smith.
