Following his shock exit from This Morning last month, amid a rumoured fallout with best pal Holly Willoughby, the 61-year-old sent shockwaves around the nation on Friday when he admitted to an affair with a much younger male colleague.
In a lengthy statement, he explained that their relationship – which began when he was still married to wife Stephanie Lowe – was ‘unwise but not illegal, before departing ITV.
He has since insisted that he didn’t ‘groom’ his unnamed colleague – who he met as a teenager – but has ‘guilt’ over how things transpired.
Schofield’s name has not been out of the headlines since and, in a sit-down interview with the Sun, he unveiled the ‘collection of blisters and calluses’ he has built up after continually vaping due to stress.
‘I am in a very bad way. Mentally, utterly, utterly broken,’ he told the outlet. ‘I think when you’ve caused this damage, you can expect nothing. It’s my fault. I completely understand.’
‘I’ve been vaping, a lot,’ he sighed. ‘I didn’t realise until suddenly it hurt, but I’ve been sitting looking up at the sky or out of the window, just staring into space.
‘I just sit on the sofa and stare. I realise by doing that, I’ve blistered both hands.’
Schofield confessed to the affair with his former colleague last week, and was promptly dropped by his talent agency, YMU.
Keeping the man’s identity quiet for privacy reasons, he issued a grovelling apology to him, insisting that he will ‘die sorry’.
‘I have massive guilt, and regret. I’ve made a mistake, I’ve had an affair at work,’ he added to the outlet. ‘I think my greatest apology must go to him. It has brought the greatest misery into his totally innocent life, his totally innocent family, his totally innocent friends.
The affair took place while he was still married to wife Lowe, who he shares daughters Ruby and Molly with – and before he came out as gay in 2020.
Schofield alleged that their relationship began in 2017 after a ‘consensual moment’ in his dressing room, and that he was struggling with his sexuality at the time.
He added to BBC News: ‘What was unwise was the fact that it happened. And that was a very, very grave error, it was consensual, but it was my fault.’
In the wake of the affair, ITV bosses have instructed a barrister to conduct an external review of his exit from This Morning.
According to a letter seen by PA, the network’s chief executive, Dame Carolyn McCall, has called for the measures as ITV takes the matter ‘extremely seriously and have reviewed our own records … [which] show that when rumours of a relationship between Phillip Schofield and an employee of ITV first began to circulate in late 2019/early 2020 ITV investigated.
‘Both parties were questioned then and both categorically and repeatedly denied the rumours, as did Phillip’s then agency YMU.
‘In addition, ITV spoke to a number of people who worked on the This Morning and wider Daytime team and were not provided with, and did not find any evidence of a relationship beyond hearsay and rumour.
However, she says, the network continued to question both men who ‘continued to deny the rumours including as recently as this month,’ adding there has been ‘a lot of inaccuracy in the reporting’ and wanted to ‘set out some facts.’
Phillip Schofield statement in full
‘I am making this statement via the Daily Mail to whom I have already apologised personally for misleading, through my lawyer who I also misled, about a story which they wanted to write about me a few days ago.
‘The first thing I want to say is: I am deeply sorry for having lied to them, and to many others about a relationship that I had with someone working on This Morning. I did have a consensual on-off relationship with a younger male colleague at This Morning.
‘Contrary to speculation, whilst I met the man when he was a teenager and was asked to help him to get into television, it was only after he started to work on the show that it became more than just a friendship. That relationship was unwise, but not illegal. It is now over.
‘When I chose to come out I did so entirely for my own wellbeing. Nobody “forced” me out. Neither I nor anyone else, to my knowledge, has ever issued an injunction, super or otherwise, about my relationship with this colleague, he was never moved on or sacked by or because of me. In an effort to protect my ex-colleague I haven’t been truthful about the relationship.
‘But my recent, unrelated, departure from This Morning fuelled speculation and raised questions which have been impacting him, so for his sake it is important for me to be honest now.
‘I am painfully conscious that I have lied to my employers at ITV, to my colleagues and friends, to my agents, to the media and therefore the public and most importantly of all to my family. I am so very, very sorry, as I am for having been unfaithful to my wife.
‘I have therefore decided to step down from the British Soap Awards, my last public commitment, and am resigning from ITV with immediate effect expressing my immense gratitude to them for all the amazing opportunities that they have given me.
‘I will reflect on my very bad judgment in both participating in the relationship and then lying about it. To protect his privacy, I am not naming this individual and my deepest wish is that both he and his family can now move on with their lives free from further intrusion, and that this statement will enable them to do so.
‘I ask the media now to respect their privacy. They have done nothing wrong, and I ask that their privacy should be respected.’
MORE : Phillip Schofield compares age gap backlash to ‘homophobia’ following affair confession: ‘It’s accepted by Leonardo DiCaprio’
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