A missing invite to the Baftas sparked an on-air spat and a Twitter war between Phillip Schofield and Fern Britton – but it seems it was all down to an embarrassing mix-up.

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Former presenter Britton insisted she was never invited to the special Bafta ceremony that the This Morning gang attended to mark the show's 30th anniversary.

However, Schofield was equally insistent that his former colleague had been asked to attend, messaging on Twitter that that she might be suffering from "memory loss."

But now the truth has been revealed: Britton's agents "assumed" she wouldn't be able to attend and turned down the Bafta invite without telling her.

The drama all began with a very tense interview on This Morning, with Britton appearing via video link from Scotland.

"Congrats on the Bafta," she told Schofield and Holly Willoughby. "That was absolutely wonderful and brilliant. I would have loved to have been there but I didn't get an invitation."

When Schofield said he thought she was performing on stage in Scotland at the time, Britton wouldn't take that for an answer: "I wasn't on Monday night, I would have come but I wasn't invited."

Later on Twitter, the This Morning host wrote: "Odd really, because she was invited and declined #memoryloss we'd have loved her to be there. A vital and much loved part of the show."

However, Britton's agents Troika Talent later tweeted to explain that they never passed on the invitation directly to the star

"HUGE apologies from Troika to @ThisMorning," the message read. "An invitation to @Fern_Britton from #BAFTA did arrive, but as she was touring with #CalendarGirls we assumed she wouldn't be able to attend, and we declined. Fern had no idea that she had been invited.

"Luckily, she has forgiven us... Apologies again for any embarrassment caused to @ThisMorning & @Fern_Britton."

Britton appears relieved that the 'snub' was actually a mix-up...

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Britton was a guest presenter on This Morning from 1993, but was a full-time host on the show for ten years between 1999 and 2009. Schofield became her co-presenter in 2002.


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Authors

Eleanor Bley GriffithsDrama Editor, RadioTimes.com
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