‘I’ve lost my best friend’: Phillip Schofield reveals Holly Willoughby didn’t reply to
Phillip Schofield has revealed Holly Willoughby did not reply to his text which said he was ‘so, so sorry’ for lying to her about his ‘unwise, but not illegal’ relationship with a much younger colleague.
The fallen This Morning star also claimed that his co-presenter of 14 years had distanced herself from him after his pedophile brother was jailed.
Breaking his silence for the first time since his sudden departure from ITV Schofield told The Sun: ‘I’ve lost my best friend. I let her down (Holly). I let that entire show down. I let the viewers down.
‘Holly did not know (about the romance). And she was one of the first texts that I sent, to say, ‘I am so, so sorry that I lied to you’.
‘She didn’t reply, and I understand why she didn’t reply, as well. So yeah. If anyone is in any way linking Holly to this; that is absolutely, wholly untrue.’
Phillip Schofield has revealed Holly Willoughby did not reply to his text which said he was ‘so, so sorry’ for lying to her about his ‘unwise, but not illegal’ relationship with a much younger colleague
Breaking his silence last night, Schofield claimed Willoughby distanced herself from him after his pedophile brother was convicted
Timothy Schofield was jailed for 12 years for a slew of child sex offences including abusing a teenage boy he groomed
Schofield claimed his relationship with his former best friend broke down after his brother was jailed, which made her distance herself from the friendship.
The veteran ITV presenter had stepped down from his role on This Morning just days after his pedophile brother Timothy Schofield was jailed for 12 years for a slew of child sex offences including abusing a teenage boy he groomed.
The star’s 54-year-old brother was convicted of 11 sexual offences involving a child between October 2016 and October 2019, including two of sexual activity with a child, after a trial at Exeter Crown Court in April.
During the bombshell interview, Schofield said that Willoughby had been one of the first people he confided in after his brother confessed to the horrendous behaviour.
He said that his co-host had been incredibly supportive throughout the trial, ‘holding [his] hand every step of the way’.
Last Friday, Schofield admitted that he had lied to ITV, his co-host, his agency YMU and lawyers about his relationship with a much younger colleague
Last Friday, Schofield admitted that he had lied to ITV, his co-host, his agency YMU and lawyers about his relationship with a much younger colleague.
The revelation sent ITV into meltdown, being forced to launch an external investigation into the affair, after a number of former workers claimed the station’s bosses must have known about their romance.
Last night, Schofield insisted he ‘did not’ groom the young boy, who he had met when he was just 15 years old.
The young man then asked the former host for a job, landing a role in ITV production when he turned 18. The affair began sometime after that.
Schofield has now insisted his interactions with the younger male before he joined This Morning were ‘completely innocent.’
He told The Sun: ‘I did not, I did not (groom him).
‘There are accusations of all sorts of things. It never came across that way because we’d become mates. I don’t know about that.
ITV boss Carolyn McCall will appear before MPs to face questions over the Phillip Schofield scandal
‘But of course I understand that there will be a massive judgment, but bearing in mind, I have never exercised that anywhere else.’
He also told the newspaper that he did not ‘lie to protect’ his career, but the colleague who ‘did not want his name in public.
Schofield said the romance began after a ‘consensual moment’ in his dressing room in 2017 but insisted ‘it was not a love affair’.
‘It was not a relationship, we were not boyfriends; we were mates.’
The fling took place while the TV star was still married to his wife of 30 years Stephanie Lowe, whom he has two daughters with.
Recalling the moment he confessed to the affair, having previously denied it when she had asked him, the former host said: ‘She got off a plane and I phoned her up and texted saying, ‘I need to talk to you’. She called back and I told her.’
Today’s interview is the first of two, with a sit down interview between Schofield and the BBC’s Amol Rajan to be released soon.
In a trailer released by the broadcaster, Schofield said: ‘It was a totally innocent picture, a totally innocent Twitter follow, of which I follow 11,400 people, and then it was a completely innocent backwards and forwards over a period of time about a job, about careers.
‘What’s wrong with that? What’s wrong with talking to someone no matter what age they are?
‘Does that mean that if you’re following anyone on Twitter that you absolutely don’t talk to anybody else or you don’t give advice?’
He added: ‘The brief communications backwards and forwards up to the point that he came to work on This Morning I think was just chat.’
Schofield’s admission to the affair with his junior colleague plunged the station into a crisis, seeing sponsors back out of multi-million-pound deals.
The Culture, Media and Sport Committee has today written to Dame Carolyn asking her to attend Parliament at 10am on Wednesday, June 14.
It comes after she was forced into a humiliating climbdown yesterday by announcing the broadcaster was bringing in a barrister to ‘carry out an external review to establish the facts’ around the chaos that has engulfed ITV since Schofield made his statement last week.