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This Morning accused of exploiting a child’s grief over Manchester

A family appeared to talk about their experience the night of the terror attack

Angry This Morning viewers have expressed their hurt on Twitter over the show’s handling of an interview with survivors of the terrorist attack in Manchester.

Holly Willoughby has been joined by Rylan Clark-Neal today as a stand-in host for her regular co-presenter Phillip Schofield.

Read more: Peter Andre apologises for sponsored tweet during the Manchester attack

They opened the show by saying they were planning a phone-in to help anyone struggling to deal with what happened in Manchester on Monday.

A bomb at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester Arena left 22 confirmed dead and a further 119 injured.

Yesterday, This Morning didn’t air so ITV News could bring us continued coverage as events unfolded.

But it was back on our screens today with show regulars agony aunt Deidre Sanders and life coaches the Speakmans, on hand to take viewers’ calls about coping with the tragedy.

The first segment on the show featured a family who had been at the concert.

The mum, dad and two daughters were visibly upset and shaken by what they’d been through as Holly and Rylan asked them questions.

As one of the young girls broke down in tears and had to be comforted by her father, viewers were horrified that the show was making them relive such a traumatic experience.

Posting on Twitter they called it “wrong” and accused the show of “exploiting children’s grief”.

https://twitter.com/vickyallover/status/867314184215822336

https://twitter.com/LadyScully/status/867314721137057792

However, some people were full of praise for the youngsters insisting they were “brave going on TV”, and commented how they wanted to give them “a cuddle”.

https://twitter.com/Sarah_HKR/status/867314390470717440

https://twitter.com/LeianneLily/status/867314810207309824

Read more: Ariana Grande flies home amid rumours her tour will not go ahead

Holly and Rylan were clearly moved to almost tears themselves as they said they couldn’t even begin to imagine how hard this was for the family and all the other people who had been involved.

Rylan told the parents how well they’d done for getting the kids out of the arena so calmly and safely.


Carena Crawford
Associate Editor (Soaps)

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