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”.
This is not appropriate, making these poor kids relive it, it's not even been 48hrs ffs, let them process what happened. #ThisMorning
— Victoria ✨ (@vickyallover) May 24, 2017
That poor child is traumatised and cant cope. Please stop questioning her #thismorning
— 🇸🇱 ChezG 🇬🇧 Sierra Leone's Diamond (@XchezaliciousX) May 24, 2017
https://twitter.com/LadyScully/status/867314721137057792
#thismorning I can't help feel it's wrong to be exploiting children's grief 🙈 just speak to the parents.
— Lelle Martin (@LesleyMartin1) May 24, 2017
Putting kids on TV talking about the terror attacks seems so wrong especially when they are so upset. #ThisMorning
— Kim Carberry (@LifeAsKimBlog) May 24, 2017
https://twitter.com/cmsmwoo1/status/867315258481881088
https://twitter.com/ladychloe89/status/867315291679752192
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
Those poor brave little girls 😭💔 I'm in absolute bits, it's so devastating for everyone who was there #ThisMorning
— Leianne Rowe (@leianne_ML) May 24, 2017
https://twitter.com/GeorgiaBrienne/status/867315009474502656
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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.