Fern: 'I don't like being used as fodder'

Fern Britton says she's angry at being used as 'fodder' and was never angry about being paid less than This Morning co-host Phillip Schofield.

The 51-year-old presenter, who is bowing out of the ITV job later this month, also brushed off rumours that she was angry that co-host Phillip Schofield was being paid more than her.

"The next thing will be a comparison between me and the goddess who replaces me on This Morning. But that's fine," she told the TV Times. "I couldn't care less, but it annoys me to be used as fodder."

Phillip's Dancing On Ice co-presenter Holly Willoughby, 28, has been widely tipped as being in the frame for Fern's job, although her successor has not yet been confirmed.

Fern said: "I want my successor to have a great time - the moment's right for someone else to have a go."

On rumours that she and Phillip have fallen out, Britton said: "Is it right that Phillip and I have had a row and that I'm cross I'm not getting paid as much as he is? No... None of that is the actual truth."

The star, whose insertion of a gastric band caused a storm, hit out at other false rumours about her.

She said her children had asked her: "Have you had a boob job?"

Fern added: "It is just ridiculous. The other week the story was that my husband (TV chef Phil Vickery) and I are breaking up. It's very, very wearing."

She said she once dragged a photographer out of his car last summer and 'I felt like punching him'.