Phillip Schofield reveals how he told his young lover the night before he came out publicly on ITV and the reply he got
PHILLIP Schofield has revealed how he told his young lover the night before he came out publicly on ITV.
The star, 61 – who was last week axed from This Morning – sensationally left the show before revealing he had an affair with a much-younger male employee.
Schofield, who was married at the time, branded the relationship “unwise but not illegal”.
His admission catapulted the show into chaos – and has left his 40-year career in tatters.
And he has now revealed that he told his young runner the night before he came out as gay, having been married for 27 years.
Schofield came out live on air and in a Sun interview in February 2020 — and was met with a wave of support, including from his family.
In an interview with the BBC yesterday, he said: “I actually spoke to him the night before the morning before I came out.
“He knew about that, he was never going to out me, we were still mates.”
Schofield said his runner supportively replied: “Oh my god, amazing! That’s brave. Well done. I hope it goes okay.”
The star is at pains to publicly apologise to his former lover but desperately wants to set the record straight on how the pair met — to counter the gossip about their affair.
Schofield is at lengths to point out the chronology of events, and make clear the pair were not in touch romantically or inappropriately after they first communicated when the boy was just 15.
He added that it was “a completely innocent backwards and forwards over a period of time about a job, about careers.”
According to Schofield, the first romantic encounter between him and the man took place in his ITV dressing room and was “consensual”.
Schofield maintains that his colleague was 20 years old when he first had any kind of sexual contact with him.
And although the former TV star said he was ashamed, he insisted he did not groom the runner.
Schofield claims he had worked with the colleague for a short period and they had become friends.
And he said that he was “struggling with his sexuality” at the time.
In an interview with The Sun he said: “Then one day something happened that just changed it. That is the moment I look back on, and regret so deeply.
“It was in my dressing room in 2017, it was a consensual moment, it was mutual.
“It was not a love affair, it was not a relationship, we were not boyfriends; we were mates.
“It wasn’t feelings (I was getting), it was more like mates: excitement.
“I was really struggling with my sexuality at that time in the build up to what happened.
“But over a period of time it happened maybe five or six times.
“We just didn’t think anyone knew, there was no lying, we thought, stupidly, that nobody knew.
“You look at yourself. I was unprofessional, one time, in a 41-year career.
“I know I did that. And there is no excuse. I won’t put forward an excuse. No one did anything wrong apart from me.”
In the last week several lurid claims and social media rumours have emerged. Many, Phil says, are categorically untrue.
He insisted that his ex-lover did not receive a penny in “hush money”, nor was an NDA ever signed preventing him from speaking out.
He also says he did not use ITV money to pay for taxis for the man — “I don’t have an ITV account”.
While Phillip did use a South East London apartment, he stressed that the couple only used it once.