A rundown of everything Phillip Schofield said about his scandal in the explosive BBC interview

He denied all claims of grooming and said he and his lover were ‘just mates’


Phillip Schofield has taken part in his first interview since his explosive affair admission and he’s said how “ashamed” he is by his own actions. The ex-This Morning presenter used the interview as a chance to ask the press and public to leave his family and former lover alone. He admitted he sees no future for himself and believes his career in television is over.

Here is everything Phillip Schofield said in his explosive tell-all interview with the BBC.

Phillip Schofield denied all claims of grooming his younger lover in the interview

Phillip Schofield caroline flack interview

Phillip Schofield rejected claims suggesting he groomed the younger male TV runner and said there was no sexual contact or flirting between the pair that would have been illegal. He confirmed Holly Willoughby had also known nothing about his relationship with the younger male.

The BBC interview was conducted by Amol Rajan, who asked Phillip Schofield how he was. Phillip said: “It’s like a weird numbness, I know that’s a selfie 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 that stuff, do they ever think that there’s actually a person at the other end? And so here I am.”

Phillip Schofield revealed the last time he spoke to his former lover

Amol Rajan asked Phillip Schofield when the last time was when he spoke to the young man at the centre of the affair scandal. Phillip admitted it was when he “engaged the lawyer for him” confirming he was paying for all independent legal advice the young man was receiving.

We finally got a timeline starting with how Phillip and his lover met

Phillip Schofield said he met the young man when he was invited to go to a school, something he had done “thousands of times.” He said: “Whether it was immediately or some time after, he said will you follow him on Twitter because he’s a fan. So I said yeah sure no problem, which I did. He probably came back saying thanks for the follow.”

Phillip confirmed the younger male was 15 at the time they first met and went on to explain he follows 11,300 people on the platform. Phillip said despite the large number of people he follows on Twitter, there has “never been any whiff of impropriety.”

He admitted they “hardly” messaged and described their communication as “on and off.”

Phillip Schofield confirmed the person involved in the affair asked if they could come to ITV for work experience at around the age of 19. He said this wasn’t unusual and that he was a passionate believer in giving people the chance to work in TV.

The man was 20 when he and Phillip first had sexual contact

Phillip Schofield interview

via BBC

Confirmed by Phillip, the young man was 20 when he and Phillip Schofield first had sexual contact. Amol Rajan asked if the pair had any sexual contact before the young man was of age and Phillip shut down the accusations. However the man had only been working there for “a few months” before their sexual relationship started.

Describing how things started in the interview, Phillip Schofield said: “Then in my dressing room one day, something happened. Which obviously I will regret forever, for him and for me, mostly him. That happened maybe four or five times over the next few months and I know it’s unforgivable but we weren’t, we were friends, we weren’t in a relationship. I was really in a mess with my sexuality at the time. And it just happened.”

The relationship consisted of five or six incidents of sexual contact

Phillip Schofield went on to admit their relationship had five or six incidents of sexual contact before they drifted back into being friends again. He confirmed Holly Willoughby knew nothing about the relationship and passed it off as a “workplace fling.”

‘The affair was consensual, but it was my fault’

Again, Phillip Schofield claims it was all legal but he does take the blame for what happened. He does then go on to deny any accusations claiming he abused his power and that he is a bully. He said he didn’t bully anyone on This Morning and didn’t “lord it” over the ITV studios.

He never loved his younger male partner

Phillip said: “No we were just mates. It was just mates.”

Phillip never asked the man to sign an NDA

Phillip confirmed that he had not asked the man to sign an NDA and said the man just wanted “all this to go away” and went on to say the man just wants a “quiet life.” He went on to deny there had been any legal process to prevent publications reporting their relationship and denied claims he had the man fired from his position at This Morning.

He said Dan Wooton has a ‘total hatred’ for him

“That is I think the foundation of his utter, total hatred of me,” he said. “You can’t do it. There is no way that any presenter on one show can get a contributor fired from another because they don’t like the fact they’re in the building. I don’t know where this came from… that I have more power than anybody else. Bless Dan, there is a lot of things that I think he said out of hatred for me. And now I’ve actually brought myself to a far far greater… you will never have done… I am done,

“I have to talk about television in the past tense, which breaks my heart. It is relentless, and it is day after day, after day after day.”

‘Do you want me to die? Because that’s where I am’

“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,” he said.

Phillip continued to say his daughters saved his life. He told Amol Rajan: “My girls saved my life, they said last week, they haven’t left me for a moment, by my side every moment because they are scared to let me out of their sight. What is that like for someone’s daughters.”

Phillip Schofield compared himself to Caroline Flack

In the interview, Phillip Schofield then compared himself to Caroline Flack who was found dead at the age of 40 in February 2020. A coroner later ruled she had taken her own life after learning prosecutors were going to press ahead with an assault charge following an incident with her boyfriend Lewis Burton.

Phillip said: “I see nothing ahead of me but blackness and sadness and regret and remorse and guilt. 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? 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?”

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