Sins of The Flesh

Phillip Schofield, is or was a day time TV celebrity in the UK .....

.... his celebrity was cemented when he started presenting the ITV show This Morning in 2002, with his last co-presenter Holly Willoughby joining him as in 2009.

He was married in 1993 and they had two daughters. But in 2020 the couple separated following his announcement that he was in fact homosexual and had been all along. On the 7th of February 2020, Schofield came out as 'gay' in a statement posted on one of his Instagram stories, which he then followed up in an interview on his own This Morning show, stating that "with the strength and support of my wife and my daughters, I have been coming to terms with the fact that I am gay". He later said that he originally thought he was bisexual when he married his wife in 1993, but later realised that he was in fact wholly homosexual. 

Now apart from the massive hurt this must have done to his wife and former partner of over 30 years, as well as the pain and confusion it must have caused his two daughters, no other damage was apparently done. In fact at first, apart from his wife and children, who publicly said little or nothing about what Mr Schofield had done to them, his 'showbiz' pals all came out supporting him (with apparently little sympathy for his wife or children's pain). 

But then, as at least a few of them were likely to be harbouring similar or far worse secrets, then you probably wouldn't expect them to consider what damage he had done to the three human beings closest to him. So at least publicly, his career sailed serenely on in the current woke environment, with very little public dissenting comment on his 30+ years of duplicity.

But in 2023 all this started to unravel as rumours emerged of a serious rift with his co-host Holly Willoughby following his taking pre-planned leave during his younger brother Timothy's sexual abuse of a child trial at Exeter Crown Court (he was found guilty of being a paedophile and of 11 sexual offences involving a child between October 2016 and October 2019). Phillip Schofield said after the verdict: "As far as I am concerned, I no longer have a brother." ..... There was also the trial revelation that he knew of the brothers criminal activities, but didn't inform the police. But he was then sacked/resigned from his presenting role on This Morning show, and Willoughby said: "The sofa won't feel the same without him." ... however he was still being lined up for another ITV show.

But then Internet rumours started about Phillip Schofield's relationship with a much younger man, who was employed by ITV after Schofield had helped him get into TV as a teenager. The speculations grew to such a level that when the Daily Mail newspaper approached him about the matter, he initially denied it via his lawyer, but then when the matter didn't go away, he changed his tune and on the 26th of May 2023, in a second statement to the Daily Mail, Schofield confirmed the reported 2020 'on off affair' that he had had with a "much younger man" who worked at ITV.

Now it has to be said that it was not initially known by me (but was no doubt out there on the web), exactly how much younger this man was to Mr Schofield, but I assumed that it was more than a few decades .... and Mr Schofield was forced to state that the "relationship was unwise, but not illegal." .... He has since resigned completely from ITV, and will now no longer present or work for them. His statement included the phrase "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." .... his poor wife must wonder what is left untainted of her married life, and the talent agency YMU, have also dropped Schofield as a client after representing him for 35 years.

It's hard to see if he still has a TV career (if at all), as the public have seen a number of TV and Radio 'stars' brought down by sex scandals involving young people (Jimmy Saville and Rolf Harris being perhaps the worst) and judging from the public comments on this web page, Schofield is not going to ride this out as easily as his 'gay' announcement. The knives are out for him, and to some extent his former colleague Willoughby, whose image is also being questioned, with TV presenter Eamon Holmes stating that "And she says: 'Oh, the couch will not be the same without him being there'. Well she wanted him not there. So what is she moaning about. They deserve each other I suppose"..

ITV itself are facing allegations that they covered up the relationship between Schofield and the young man .... with Eamon Holmes, the former This Morning presenter claiming that he and his wife Ruth Langsford had been 'deceived' about the allegations and promising that: 'One day I will tell the story.' ... but ...

.... Of course the Schofield saga has rumbled on regardless of Mr Holmes and others statements. Mr Schofield's initial claim that his affair with the much younger male was "legal," prompted speculation that this was more than a bit disingenuous, because the legal age of consent for homosexual acts is 16 in the UK. He seems to have first met his ex-boyfriend when he was a young teen of about 15 (which coincidentally was the age range of the boy that his brother Timothy Schofield was convicted of grooming and abusing).

However he claims that they were just 'mates' until something happened in his ITV dressing room years later (he has since stated that the young man was 20 years old when he first had sexual contact with him), and they became more than friends. Now I guess a 20 year old and a 57 year old could be mates or even lovers ..... after all plenty of men have wives/mistresses with big age differences e.g Robert de Niro and Al Pacino are both doing this, without public backlash. The difference is that it's not behind their wives backs.

But Mr Schofield says that the contact was initially innocent and only by public Twitter posts, after that first meeting at a drama school event. The boy then asked for advice on working in the TV industry, and ended up as a 'runner' on Schofield's show. The role of 'runner' is actually the lowest rung of the TV production ladder (little more than tea boy level), but strangely the young man still went on stage with the main stars and main production team when the show won a National TV award prize ... not usual.

But as the story has dragged on, there has also been a fair bit of distancing going on .... he now says that they only had five or six romantic encounters over a few months before the relationship ended. He has also suggested that 'homophobia' is a factor in the negative publicity he has received: "If it was male-female then it wouldn't be such a scandal."

Schofield finally then played the martyr card ... saying that what's happening to him over all this is like what happened to Caroline Flack (a UK TV personality who committed suicide following long-term mental health struggles, and some media attention after she hit her boyfriend). That if it wasn't for his two daughters daily attention, he 'wouldn't be here'.

So in the end, his narcissistic nature has come to the fore ... the story is now apparently moving focus in his eyes, to a slightly self pitying tone in latest his round of sob sister TV and newspaper interviews.

"What am I going to do with my days? I see nothing ahead of me but blackness, and sadness, and regret, and remorse, and guilt. I did something very wrong, and then I lied about it consistently."

.... That's a lot of "I's".

Of course this is just one side of the story, as the boyfriend has remained silent and unnamed under his right to privacy under Article Eight of the Human Rights Act. We may hear a different version of events if and when he talks .... so this tale still has some potential legs. Worse than that, I fear that a kiss'n'tell media interview, book or movie, from either Schofield or his ex-lover could well emerge at some time in the future ..... this grubby little story could run for some time. .