Phillip Schofield says his two daughters have saved his life
‘I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for my daughters’: Phillip Schofield says his children have been at his side despite ‘only telling his eldest about affair minutes before deception was made public’ as he says he’s ‘lost everything’ in wake of scandal
Phillip Schofield has praised his two daughters for saving his life over the past week after his exit from This Morning, saying he ‘wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for’ them.
The 61-year-old former This Morning presenter said the fallout from his admission last Friday about his affair with a younger male colleague had been ‘relentless’.
Schofield told how his two daughters Molly, 29, and Ruby, 27, had ‘guarded me and won’t let me out of their sight’, adding that he had felt a ‘weird numbness’.
The broadcaster also said he had ‘lost everything’ in the wake of the revelations, admitting his ‘career is over’ and there had been a ‘catastrophic effect’ on his mind.
Schofield went on: ‘I did something very wrong and then I lied about it consistently and you can’t live with that. How do you live with that?’
TV presenter Phillip Schofield speaks to the BBC’s media editor Amol Rajan about his affair
Phillip Schofield with his wife Stephanie Lowe and daughters Molly and Ruby in London in 2018
The BBC released the interview which saw Schofield (left) interviewed by Amol Rajan (right)
He also said ‘I think I understand how Caroline Flack felt’, in the interview with the BBC’s Amol Rajan – Schofield’s first following his exit from This Morning last week.
READ MORE: Phillip Schofield texted Holly begging for forgiveness over his This Morning affair lies… and she’s NOT REPLIED
Love Island host Flack was found dead in February 2020 at the age of 40, and a coroner later ruled she took her own life after learning that prosecutors were going to press ahead with an assault charge following an incident with her boyfriend Lewis Burton.
Schofield said: ‘Last week, if my daughters hadn’t been there then I wouldn’t be here. And they’ve guarded me and won’t let me out of their sight, it’s like a weird numbness.
‘I know that’s a selfish point of view. But you come to a point where you just think, how much are you supposed to take? If all of those people that write all that stuff, do they ever think that there’s actually a person at the other end?’.
Asked by Rajan, the BBC’s media editor, if he was strong enough to do the interview, Schofield replied: ‘I have to’.
When pressed as to why, Schofield said in reference to his former colleague: ‘Because there is an innocent person here who didn’t do anything wrong, who is vulnerable and probably feels like I do.
Phillip Schofield broke his silence in the BBC interview, saying he’s ‘broken and ashamed’
Schofield was seen taking drags from a light blue vape as he answered questions from The Sun
‘And I just have to say, stop with him… leave him alone…’.
Timeline: From Phillip Schofield coming out as gay to resigning from This Morning
Phillip Schofield’s fall from grace has been swift. The veteran TV star, who has admitted to an affair with a much younger male colleague while still married to his wife, has lost his high-profile job on This Morning, his lucrative contract with ITV and his talent representation.
This is a timeline of how events unfolded:
February 2020: Schofield comes out as gay after nearly 27 years of marriage to wife Stephanie, in an emotional on-air chat with co-host and long-time friend Holly Willoughby. The pair embrace on the sofa.
September 2022: The co-hosts face criticism over claims they skipped the queue for the Queen’s lying in state while attending as members of the media to film a segment for This Morning.
April 17 2023: The first hint something might be wrong comes in the first show after the Easter break. They should have both been on the sofa after Schofield took leave while he brother Timothy was on trial for child sex offences. While Schofield is back in the studio, Willoughby is absent, saying she has shingles.
May 10: There are reports the pair are ‘barely speaking’.
May 11: Schofield calls Holly ‘his rock’ and says they are ‘the best of friends’.
May 15: The pair put on a united front on This Morning and make no reference to stories about their relationship.
May 18: Schofield presents what will turn out to be his last episode of This Morning.
May 20: Schofield steps down from This Morning with immediate effect. ITV says he will continue to present ‘peak time shows’, including The British Soap Awards and a new prime-time series. Willoughby releases a statement saying the sofa ‘won’t feel the same without him’.
May 21: It is announced that Dermot O’Leary and Alison Hammond will host the show on Monday May 22, as Willoughby takes early half-term leave. It is announced she will return to hosting duties on June 5.
May 22: O’Leary and Hammond host the show and hail Schofield as ‘one of the best live television broadcasters this country has ever had’.
May 26: Schofield admits to an ‘unwise but not illegal’ affair with a much younger male colleague and resigns from ITV. He confirms that the relationship began while he was still with his wife and says he will not be hosting the British Soap Awards. He apologises for lying about the relationship. He is dropped by his talent agency YMU.
May 27: Willoughby accuses Schofield of lying to her about the affair, saying his admission is ‘very hurtful’. ITV says the broadcaster was ‘not provided with, and did not find, any evidence of a relationship beyond hearsay and rumour’ when it looked into the matter in 2020.
May 28: Former This Morning resident doctor Dr Ranj Singh says the show is ‘toxic’, adding he raised concerns about ‘bullying and discrimination’ two years ago when he worked there and afterwards felt like he was ‘managed out’ for whistleblowing. ITV responds by saying an external and independent adviser was appointed to carry out a review after the complaint, which found ‘no evidence of bullying or discrimination’.
May 29: Schofield releases a statement denying ‘toxicity’ at This Morning and says ‘it’s the same handful of people with a grudge against me or the show who seem to have the loudest voice’. Former This Morning presenter Eamonn Holmes alleges there was a ‘total cover-up’ at ITV over the affair and says Willoughby should follow Schofield ‘out the door’.
May 31: ITV’s chief executive Dame Carolyn McCall says that the broadcaster has instructed a barrister to conduct an external review of how it has handled Schofield’s affair. She adds that Jane Mulcahy KC, of Blackstone Chambers, will ‘carry out an external review to establish the facts’.
June 1: Dame Carolyn has been called to give evidence to a parliamentary committee on June 14, to answer questions about the broadcaster’s approach to safeguarding and complaint handling following the departure of Schofield.
Schofield also told of the criticism he has faced since admitting the affair, saying: ‘Do you want me to die? Because that’s where I am.’
He said he saw ‘nothing ahead’ of him and he had to talk about his career in television ‘in the past tense’.
He said: ‘It is relentless, and it is day after day, after day after day.
‘If you don’t think that that is going to have the most catastrophic effect on someone’s mind… do you want me to die? Because that’s where I am. I have lost everything.’
Schofield also said he was not a victim of the situation around his hidden affair, but added: ‘I feel a victim of hate after the event, and I think there will probably be a lot of people watching this now thinking ‘how dare you?’.
‘It would be easier for me to say I don’t feel like a victim.
‘What I feel a victim of is spun areas of non-factual information and gossip and nastiness. But I don’t look any more.’
Schofield added being dropped as an ambassador by the Prince’s Trust charity ‘broke my heart’.
‘I can’t remember how long I’ve been there,’ he told the BBC.
Schofield also said he first started following his former lover on Twitter when he was aged 15 after he was asked to do so by a friend.
He explained he was invited by a friend to go to a school, something he said he has done ‘thousands of times’.
Schofield claimed he was later asked to follow ‘a fan’ back on Twitter, who was aged 15 at the time – to which the presenter agreed.
‘I follow 11,300 people and in all the time that I’ve been on Twitter there has never been any whiff of impropriety’, he added.
Schofield said the last time he interacted with his former lover was a ‘couple of weeks’ ago when he organised a lawyer for him because he needed ‘independent’ support.
Schofield later confirmed he is paying for the man’s legal advice.
Schofield also told the BBC that the first time he had any ‘kind of sexual contact’ with his former This Morning colleague, the younger man was 20.
He said the pair had last spoken when Schofield ‘engaged a lawyer for him’, adding: ‘He needed independent support. So that was the last time’.
Recounting the first time they met, Schofield told Rajan: ‘I was invited by a friend of mine to go to open a drama school… But whether it was immediately or sometime after, he said, ‘will you follow him on Twitter, because he’s a fan’. So I said, ‘yeah, sure, no problem’, which I did.’
Rajan added: ‘And he was what, 15 at the time?’.
Schofield said: ‘I follow 11,300 people, and in all the time I’ve been on Twitter, there has never been any whiff of impropriety.’
He went on to say the pair were ‘hardly’ in touch, but the young man had later gotten in contact to ask ‘if he could visit the studios, work experience-type of thing. I said come down and have a look, for sure, which he did.’
Schofield told Rajan the man was 19 when he had first expressed interest in a television career, and when asked by Rajan if, looking back on their messages, there was ‘any sense in which you were flirting with him?’, Schofield said: ‘No, I’ve been 41 years in television. Nothing like this before. No accusations. I mean, this is all accusations.’
Schofield resigned from ITV last week and was dropped by his talent agency YMU after admitting to the ‘unwise but not illegal’ relationship.
In his first interviews since leaving the broadcaster and This Morning, he said he was ‘utterly broken and ashamed’ but denied claims he had ‘groomed’ the man.
The former Dancing on Ice presenter told The Sun newspaper the fallout from his secret affair had brought ‘the greatest misery’ to his former lover’s ‘totally innocent life’.
And he added in his BBC interview: ‘There is an innocent person here who didn’t do anything wrong, who is vulnerable and probably feels like I do.
‘And I just have to say stop with him, OK with me, but stop with him. Leave him alone now.’
He also denied there had ever been a ‘feud’ between him and his former co-presenter and ‘TV sister’ Holly Willoughby.
‘I’ve lost my best friend. I let her down,’ he told The Sun.
‘Holly did not know. And she was one of the first texts that I sent, to say, ‘I am so, so sorry that I lied to you’.’
The pair had presented This Morning together since 2009, with Willoughby due to return to the show on Monday after the half-term break, having taken an early holiday after news of Schofield’s departure emerged.
Alison Hammond and Dermot O’Leary have been among the presenters hosting the programme in recent weeks.
Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby on the sofa of ITV’s This Morning last month, on May 11
In a separate grilling by BBC’s Amol Rajan, he was quizzed over a photograph which showed him attending the young man’s drama school when he was still a pupil and only 15 years old
Schofield went on to say that his ‘greatest apology’ over the fallout from the affair was to his former lover and that he would ‘die sorry’ for what he had done.
READ MORE: Phil admits wife Stephanie was ‘very, very angry’ when he told her of affair – and ‘only told his daughter minutes before deception was made public’
In a sign he believes his television career is over, he told Rajan: ‘I see nothing ahead of me but blackness and sadness and regret and remorse and guilt.’
He said: ‘I’m not in television any more, I don’t know what I am even remotely… if I get through this.
‘I don’t know even remotely how I move forward… what am I going to do with my days?’
He went on: ‘I did something very wrong and then I lied about it consistently and you can’t live with that. How do you live with that?’
Schofield added being dropped as an ambassador by the Prince’s Trust charity ‘broke my heart’.
‘I can’t remember how long I’ve been there,’ he told the BBC.
It comes after ITV boss Dame Carolyn McCall was called to a parliamentary committee on June 14 to answer questions about the broadcaster’s approach to safeguarding and complaint handling following Schofield’s exit.
In a letter seen on Wednesday, the chief executive revealed the broadcaster had instructed barrister Jane Mulcahy KC of Blackstone Chambers, to carry out an external review of the facts.
It also said the broadcaster had ‘reviewed’ its records and said ‘when rumours of a relationship’ between Schofield and an employee of ITV emerged, they ‘both categorically and repeatedly denied the rumours’.
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Body language expert JUDI JAMES reveals what Phil DIDN’T say out loud in his interviews
Phillip Schofield looked ‘diminished and hunched’ with a ‘vulnerable gaze’ as he broke his silence after confessing to an affair with a much younger colleague, a body language expert claimed last night.
The former This Morning star sat down yesterday to speak for the first time since leaving the ITV programme, saying he will ‘die sorry’ for the ‘grief’ he inflicted on his young male lover.
Body language expert Judi James told MailOnline that while Schofield was quizzed on his affair, which he previously dubbed ‘unwise, but not illegal’, he sucked on and massaged his blue vape ‘like a stress ball’.
The former host had ‘his shoulders slumped’ with ‘deep groves at the sides of his mouth suggesting misery’ as he categorically denied that he did not groom his former lover.
As Schofield told of his pitiful text to his co-host Holly Willoughby to tell him how ‘deeply, deeply sorry’ he was for lying to her about his secret relationship, Ms James told MailOnline he had a ‘classical facial full of sorrow’.
READ MORE: Read Judi’s full analysis here
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