Charlotte Hawkins was forced to step in at the last minute during Wednesday’s edition of Good Morning Britain, in place of regular anchor Susanna Reid.
At the beginning of the show, Charlotte and co-host Ed Balls revealed that Susanna had actually made it into the building, but a decision was reached for her not to go on air as she’d lost her voice.
Speaking to the team from backstage, a hoarse Susanna insisted she was “fine” but “just can’t speak”.
“I don’t know whether it was the heatwave inflaming my vocal cords,” she offered, before insisting her absence was unrelated to the previous night’s National Television Awards.
Susanna continued: “It’s funny because, of course, it was the NTAs last night. And when I got in my cab to leave, the driver said, ‘you’re the very first person to leave the NTAs, you’re obviously not partying’.
“And of course, I don’t drink. I don’t smoke. So there’s absolutely no reason I can understand, but I’ve completely lost my voice.”
“The irony of it is, we were all there together last night,” Charlotte added. “You left first, you hadn’t been drinking. I didn’t leave as early as I should have done.”
Ed then pointed out he had “left [at the same time as] Susanna at nine o’clock in the evening”, continuing: “We got in the same lift, we went down two floors, we parted… and your voice sounded fine then! It’s obviously deteriorated overnight.”
“I’m really sorry, I can only apologise,” Susanna clarified. “But thank you so much for stepping in, I did not want to inflict this on our wonderful viewers for a full three hours.”
EastEnders was the big winner at the 2023 NTAs, scooping Best Serial Drama as well as individual wins for cast members Danielle Harold and Bobby Brazier.
Happy Valley also won two awards, while Ant and Dec held onto their 22-year winning streak in the Best Presenter category.