What Phillip Schofield told Amol Rajan, key points from the BBC interview
Amol Rajan #AmolRajan
Phillip Schofield said he has “lost everything” in the wake of his affair with a younger male colleague and told of a “catastrophic effect” on his mind.
The former This Morning presenter, 61, said the fallout from the revelations had been “relentless” and urged the media to leave his former lover “alone now”.
Speaking to the BBC’s Amol Rajan, he told of the criticism he has faced since admitting the affair, saying: “Do you want me to die? Because that’s where I am.”
Here are the key points from the interview:
Phillip Schofield reveals his dark thoughts
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.”
Referring to the Love Island host who took her own life in February 2020, he added: “I think I understand how Caroline Flack felt.”
Apology for his former lover – and how it began
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.
Schofield 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.
In an interview with Amol Rajan on the BBC, the former This Morning presenter 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.
The affair was not illegal
Phillip Schofield has denied he had any sexual interaction with his former This Morning colleague when the younger man was underage, but said their later affair was “unforgivable”.
Asked directly by the BBC’s Amol Rajan if he had any kind of sexual relationship when his former lover was underage, Schofield said: “God no.
“In my statement, it says ‘consensual relationship, fully legal’, I mean, that (the statement) was approved by both sides.”
Recalling how the affair began, Schofield said: “He’d been working at the show for a few months and we’d become mates, we were mates. Around the studios we’d hang out together, chat to each other, that sort of stuff.
“And 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 boyfriends, we weren’t in a relationship.
“I was really in a mess with my sexuality at the time and it just happened.”
Career is over
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.
A great many things are untrue
Phillip Schofield told the BBC that there were “a great many things” that had been said about him that were “categorically untrue”.
He also dismissed claims by GB News presenter Dan Wootton that he had been responsible for him being fired as a contributor on ITV show Lorraine, saying the accusations had come from Wootton’s “utter, 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.”
A victim of hate
Phillip Schofield 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.