Denise Van Outen has spoken about the bitter feud she has with former Big Breakfast co-host, Johnny Vaughan.
The 45-year-old TV presenter has opened up about how her friendship with Johnny became acrimonious after their relationship fell apart nearly 20 years ago.
Denise and Johnny were the popular hosts of Channel 4's The Big Breakfast, making the show essential viewing for early risers.
The chemistry between the pair helped make the show the popular choice over breakfast but wages and ego were going to be the downfall of the pair.
Denise spoke candidly about her time with Johnny, now 53, during an appearance on Natalie Pinkham's In The Pink Podcast on Friday.
Denise revealed: "We were proper mates. I laughed every day, we used to laugh to the point where I was going to wet myself. Then things happened and we’ve had fallouts along the way.
"There’s are couple of reasons why… when the show became successful and we were negotiating contracts I thought we were doing it as a team but his agent had other ideas and she got him more money and there were all those arguments that happens with bands and presenters.
"I wanted us to be a team and it became apparent we were not a team anymore and we never got back on track."
While the pair have seen their friendship disintegrate over the years, Denise was keen for it to be know that she does still "love him to bits."
She countered that by claiming: "Sometimes when I do meet up with male people in the industry their egos take over a bit and they don’t want to have the conversation.
"I do love him to bits I’m not saying anything untoward about him! I don’t know his kids and we don’t really know anything about each other anymore."
The Breakfast Show's audience figures reached record levels under Denise and Johnny's guidance but it all came to an end when she decided to quit in the hope of building her acting career.
By 2000, the pair were reunited but the slump in ratings by then were too terminal to reverse and the pair could not rekindled their old chemistry.
Eight years later, Capital FM tempted Denise to co-host the breakfast show with Johnny, which had been doing solo for four years.
Instead of a glorious return to their heyday, the pair worked under a strained relationship and Denise promptly quit after just six months of a year-long contract.
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