Last week, I made this Pajiba explainer the lead story on the links page. The explainer was for the weeks-long controversy over ITV’s This Morning cohosts Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby. Holly and Phillip were longtime cohosts and friends, and she supported him when his marriage (to a woman) fell apart and he came out as gay back in 2020. But something shifted over the month of May – there were rumors that Holly and Phillip had a huge falling out, there were rumors of a high-level coverup, there were rumors that Phillip had behaved inappropriately with a coworker. Well, now we know what was behind all of the British euphemisms and open-secrets: Phillip Schofield groomed and engaged in an inappropriate sexual relationship with a much-younger male employee. This is why ITV suddenly fired Schofield and why everyone connected to Schofield professionally and personally is in ass-covering mode.
Phillip Schofield has quit ITV after admitting he had an affair with a younger male ITV employee and lied to cover it up. The ex-This Morning host said the relationship with his junior colleague was “unwise but not illegal”. In a statement to the Daily Mail, Schofield said he “met the man when he was a teenager and was asked to help him to get into television”. He apologised for lying to colleagues, employers, the media and public.
An ITV spokesperson said they were “deeply disappointed by the admissions of deceit” made by Schofield and confirmed it had cut all ties with the host. It means the 61-year-old will no longer present the British Soap Awards next month. He will also not front a new prime-time series which ITV had said last week they were developing with him.
Schofield left his role at This Morning last week after reports of a rift with co-star Holly Willoughby. He said his departure from the show was unrelated to the affair with the colleague, who the BBC is not naming. The TV presenter was still married to his wife Stephanie Lowe at the time of the relationship. They separated in 2020, after Schofield came out as gay.
Schofield said he was “so, very, very sorry” for being unfaithful to his wife, and for lying to his colleagues, agents, employers, friends, the media and the public. The TV host said he would reflect on his “very bad judgement in both participating in the relationship and then lying about it”.
An ITV spokesperson said: “The relationships we have with those we work with are based on trust. Phillip made assurances to us which he now acknowledges were untrue and we feel badly let down.”
Some former ITV daytime figures, including Eamonn Holmes and Dan Wootton, have suggested the network has questions to answer about how much managers knew about the relationship and what action they took.
ITV had to release a second statement in which they explained that they “investigated” the rumors of the relationship back in 2020 and both Schofield and this much-younger man repeatedly denied everything. When the story broke on Friday, Holly didn’t say anything, although it’s widely assumed that she was a big reason why Phillip was pushed out of This Morning. Then, on Saturday, she posted this on her IG Stories: “It’s taken time to process yesterday’s news. When reports of this relationship first surfaced, I asked Phil directly if this was true and was told it was not. It’s been very hurtful to find out that was a lie. Holly.”
So, yeah – I haven’t followed the drama, but I was aware there was a drama and that it was all very hush-hush for weeks. It feels like Holly learned something big (perhaps the totality of Phillip’s lies and behavior) about a month ago and she began the process of cutting ties with him and trying to salvage her professional reputation. Will that work? I truly don’t know. It’s also interesting because this scandal really was an open secret among many in the British media, including some of the worst royal reporters. How many Schofield defenders have egg on their face? How much did ITV know and when did they know it?
Schofield has finally been caught out … But he's not the only guilty party. 4 high members of Itv management knew what sort of man he was …and NEVER once took action to prevent him controlling or taking advantage of his position over young people.
— Eamonn Holmes OBE (@EamonnHolmes) May 26, 2023
Hopefully the uproar around ITV's alleged coverups will lead to other offenders in the media industry, particularly those who think they have gotten away with the most stomach-churning of crimes, losing their ring of protection, too. Time to put morals over money.
— Omid Scobie (@scobie) May 27, 2023
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.
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- Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield at ‘Dancing On Ice’ TV show, Series 11 launch photocall, Old Bovingdon Airfield, Hertfordshire, UK,Image: 541139901, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: WORLD RIGHTS – Fee Payable Upon Reproduction – For queries contact Avalon.red – sales@avalon.red London: +44 (0) 20 7421 6000 Los Angeles: +1 (310) 822 0419 Berlin: +49 (0) 30 76 212 251, Model Release: no, Credit line: James Shaw / Avalon
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- Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield attends the Pride of Britain Awards 2022 at Grosvenor House,Image: 733002566, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Credit line: Jules Annan / Avalon
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- Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield at a Photocall for the new series of ITVŐs Dancing on Ice, Bovingdon, UK,Image: 749092079, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Credit line: James Shaw / Avalon
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- Tric Awards 2022 at Grosvenor House Hotel Featuring: Phillip Schofield Where: London, United Kingdom When: 06 Jul 2022 Credit: Cover Images
Sounds like everyone knew inside and outside ITV and turned a blind eye or covered it up. I don’t believe that Holly had no idea.
And Omid is dropping some TEA! It looks like the next person under the gun is Dan Wootton as there is a tweet going around by someone accusing him of horrible things and basically said “Come at me bro! I have nothing to lose.”
It’s time to call out Dan Wooton!
Wasn’t he behind the reason why Phil had to come out as gay? He was blackmailing him or something like that?
Regardless, Wooton had done a lot of dirty/shady things for his own career. It’s time!
Yeah Wootton was going to run the story as front page basically outing him then Phil outed himself on live TV to get ahead of the story – Schofield basically said this at the time. There is beef between Schofield and Wootton that dates back to when he was a regular on the show – he and Schofield never got along and Wootton has already said that Schofield was the reason he lost his regular spot on the show.
@ Snuffles, I agree that the ITV brass, as well as Holly, knew about this inappropriate relationship until it exploded onto their faces. It’s about time that these corporations face the consequences with the sole purpose of the bottom line. I hope that this guy that Scofield groomed is in therapy for what this predator committed against him.
As for Omid spilling tea, bring it ALL on!!!! We are ready for some comeuppance that Wooten, and the ilk, are deserving!
I really feel for the young man – he’s been dragged into a scandal all because he thought Phil loved him and that their relationship was real. He was nothing more than a toy to Phil who is every inch the predator his brother is.
I hope he has or is going to get therapy for this.
Caroline flacks ex boyfriend Andrew exposed Dan wootton on Instagram and got thrown in jail himself. Dan is as shady as they come.
Whilst I despite Dan Wooten, Andrew Brady was also a piece of sh!t.
He was trying to write a tell all book about Caroline after her death.
You would think after everything that came out about Jimmy Seville and the BBC that someone would realize that things like this always eventually come out.
Also, Phil isn’t the only one in his family who is in trouble. Part of the falling out with Holly is that he didn’t give her a heads up regarding his own brother’s trial/conviction in April for child sex abuse:
“The brother of TV presenter Phillip Schofield has been jailed for 12 years for sexually abusing a boy. Timothy Schofield was found guilty in April of 11 sexual offences involving a child between 2016 and 2019”
There’s also the fact that PS gave evidence in the trial that his brother told him about at least one incident involving the child complainant some time prior to the brother’s arrest and PS’s response was to tell him not to do it again rather than reporting it or doing anything to actively prevent further abuse.
^^ PS deserves to lose his job and standing as a public person for this alone. He effectively enabled a child abuser, who was then free to continue to abuse children.
PS had a duty to report his brother.
Agree @Flower, he had every duty to report his brother & didn’t, most likely because he was doing the same sort of thing? The person he groomed wasn’t as young, but still.
Not sure why Holly has to salvage her professional reputation when it’s Schofield who behaved badly.
Also when I learned of this I did some googling. Apparently the person was 15 When they first met in 2014 and Schofield was a patron of the theatre company. The person was employed at 18 and the relationship started some time later. This is still wrong and there is probably more than I know but this is all I could verify. Also the person has now left the business. I hope he is enjoying his life.
Something is very off about Schofield to me. Read the Pajiba article to see why :(.
She worked with both of them every day for years, she hosted tons of TV segments that the boy appeared on (even one where the boy was shirtless and she was rubbing his naked chest). Phil was openly bringing the boy to dinners and even awards ceremonies as his date, hell the boy even got to go up onstage with them to collect a major award when he was just a gofer.
There’s absolutely no way she didn’t know. You don’t witness your 50-something best friend squiring the teenage boy who works for both of you around as his date and not realise something dodgy is going on.
Holly also saw three of her co-stars get fired or managed out for complaining about Phil’s behaviour with their teenage runner, and kept her mouth shut and kept on the pretence of her and Phil being best friends.
She chose to turn a blind eye to an older man having sex with his teenage employee, give him special treatment, then fire him when the relationship ended, and she turned a blind eye to innocent women and other gay men losing their careers for complaining. She’s complicit. Phil and Holly have long had a reputation for being bullies and monsters to work with who made everyone else’s life on This Morning hell.
I didn’t know all this, thank you.
Didn’t know any of that about Holly, either. Unpleasant news, I had thought better of her. She’s just another bully.
Holly Willoughby knew, Dan Wootton knew and probably everyone else too
Thanks for the details on the young man’s age and job description, Pointillist and Samuelwhiskers. I was kinda left scratching my head about the underlying offense. The BBC article wasn’t clear about whether this amounted to pedophilia or was just icky. And Ms. Willoughby was rubbing the young man’s naked chest on TV? British daytime television must be pretty 🔥💥.
I think it’s fair to say that Philips behaviour was a well known open secret. More than anyone, holly has centred herself as Philips best friend. The public loved their friendship on the show and both holly and Phil milked that ‘friendship’ for everything it was worth. Holly would have known all about this and still for years happily played along with supporting him and being his bff for the cameras.
I can understand a lot of lower level employees feeling too intimidated to report Philip or complain about his behaviour, but holly was his equal, she could have made itv take action because she actually has some power and influence there.
Holly is as fake as they come.
I remember when he came out – he claimed he’d never acted on it and had never been intimate with a man, thats also likely a lie.
Nope 10 or 12 years old.
I think they’re using the ‘not employed until 18’ to cover whatever was happening with that person between 15 & 18, when he was underage.
They met at the theater group but the boy was 10. There is a photo.
Omg, 10 years old?! That is a LOT worse than what I had seen. That poor guy!
Until the first Pajiba article by Kayleigh Donaldson was published, I was fairly unaware of this scandal. She written a follow-up article on this sorry affair today, which is also an excellent explainer. The way the rest of the media is dancing around PS is really disturbing and hopefully his victim can heal. It’s clear that this is the classic story of a company protecting their bottom line (so PS’s image) at the expense of several other employees and the young man he groomed.
I wonder if Dan Wooten’s crappy behavior enabled some of it. Phil got a lot of sympathy for that public outing. It may have given cover to some of his behaviors. People not wanting to seem to be homophobic (we know how some love grooming stories) or like they were piling on, etc. If the story had been allowed to emerge organically it may have been different. Instead one crappy person may have bought another crappy person a few years cover.
But we knew all this last year when this story broke. The problem was the British media decided to back Philip by using his “coming out” story to gloss over the affair with a younger coworker who he possibly groomed.
The establishment covered up for him until his brother got convicted..
That’s when the ring of protection he had started to fail.
They did the same with Boris until it was convenient.
They are continently doing the same thing with William and his staff. They all know about William, his briefings and cheating but until something major breaks possibly in foreign media they’ll lie to protect William while harassing the Sussexes.
The British media are a mafia.
Common knowledge that the sun effectively blackmailed him into coming out for this very reason. It’s the tidal wave of bad news that’s scuppered him, he’s an unpleasant drama queen, the Queen queue scandal, Holly being upset with him, his brother, and of course, failing ratings. ITV are clearly lying to cover their asses too.
Yeah, I think you’re right. After his brother’s conviction they couldn’t keep quiet anymore. He was doing the same thing!
It seems a lot of information is still being withheld about this, but at the moment, I don’t see how this is any different to Leonardo DiCaprio’s situation with his most recent girlfriend, whom he also knew when she was a child before he started a romantic relationship with her as an adult. Except for the fact that Philip Schofield is gay and this conveniently aligns with all the nasty stereotypes about gay men being paedophiles. So I’m watching all the media coverage with real distaste over the latent homophobia, and the massive amounts of hypocrisy on display as people who’ve known about this for years are suddenly denying it.
But if Dan Wooten is about to get his comeuppance, fantastic.
At least one openly gay This Morning (the name of PS’s show) employee (Dr. Ranj) says he was sacked for raising concerns about the ‘toxic culture’ so there does seem to be more than just homophobia going on.
Phillip S’s crisis management team seem to be leaning into ‘homophobia’ while Holly W’s are going for ‘misogyny’ and ‘why are we holding a woman responsible for a man’s actions’ (which isn’t what is happening – it is being claimed she knew and enabled PS’s behaviour not that she is responsible for it).
Phil knew and had a friendship and mentoring-type relationship with the boy since he was a child. The boy joined the youth theatre company that Phil is patron of when he was only 12 years old. There’s a video that was accidentally taken of them having an intimate dinner together just the two of them (both of them drinking red wine) and the boy was only 16 at the time. Phil was arranging special outings and things for the boy since he was at least 15. Taking him out for meals and alcohol since he was 15/16.
Phil used his pull to get the boy a job as runner when he was 18, the relationship turned sexual soon after that, yet the boy enjoyed extraordinary special privileges that a runner would never normally get. He frequently appeared on TV, was allowed to do celeb interviews, attended the British version of the Golden Globe awards as Phil’s date when not even senior crew were allowed to attend (who ever heard of a teenage gofer attending a big TV award??) and he even got to go up on stage with the stars and execs to accept the award and was standing directly behind the stars while they were delivering their acceptance speech.
Another of the show’s leads filed a formal complaint about the whole situation and was fired for it.
Then Phil and the boy got into a fight at a big celeb party which ended up with Phil having the boy (then aged 22) thrown out, where he was papped outside accosting the other main star. After that, the boy was fired.
I don’t know anything about Leo, but Phil actively groomed a child whose career he had power over.
People are talking about a super injunction that is coming to a close at then end of june so maybe more information will come out after that.
Apparently the super injunction is against the ex BF not the media – ITV used their influence to kill the story on PS behalf. From what I read online at the time Schofield was allowed to come out on national TV in exchange for them killing the story with The Sun and Wootton. A deal was most def done which means they knew.
Because the timeline seems be that Phil had access to this guy at age 10, exchanged messages with on social media from age 13, hired him in his workplace, fucked him and then quietly had him fired.
If you don’t see that there is a confluence of interpersonal and professional taboos being broken here, I can’t help you.
THIS EXACTLY 👆💯 Also 👏👏👏👏👏
Simon Cowell David Walliams and Louis Walsh needs to be next. Dan Wootton is demented on so many levels so it wouldn’t surprise me if he has some skeletons as well.
I had a Beverly Hills hairdresser once who used to do one of Simon’s ex-girlfriend’s hair and had met Simon on several occasions. She actually thought Simon Cowell was delightful, but also strongly implied that he was “flexible”.
The younger man’s name is all over social media (apparently he confronted Holly and Phillip at some awards show and Phillip had him removed by security) and he was young, young, young when he got involved with Schofield. Nasty.
Oh yiiiikes, nothing more stomach churning when your defence to sexual misconduct is “it wasn’t technically illegal”. I’m with Omid, lift these rocks!
Yeah that’s not good.
He was actually Phil’s date for the NTAs (National TV Awards) two years running, the first year was in 2017, four days after his 21st birthday, and he he tweeted photos of himself sitting next to Phil in the audience, and even got to go up on stage with them to accept the award.
Allegedly, he and Phil got into a fight at the NTA afterparty the second year he attended (so the week of his 22nd birthday party, in March 2018), and allegedly the fight – which took place in full view of half the TV industry – was over the younger man wanting Phil to say he loved him and generally due to the younger man feeling that he wasn’t being treated appropriately as Phil’s longterm romantic partner. They had been in a relationship for a few years at that point. This resulted in Phil having him thrown out, and he was papped later that night running around outside crying and accosting a concerned-looking Holly as she left the afterparty.
It’s becoming obvious that Holly know about the relationship – she cannot survive this as she has also lied about it. It’s time for her to come clean as the more that comes out the more it looks like she was part of the cover up.
Good riddance and ITV have a lot to answer for – of course they covered it up, they always do. He’s had a rep for being the biggest assh0le on daytime TV for years before this happened and you can bet that its not the first time that he’s done this – there are likely others, always are. Like his brother he likes them young. The rumours about him being gay date way back to his early career.
As for Holly – she’s also an unpleasant person and others are taking this opportunity to make that known. Given how close she and Schofield were its unlikely that she new nothing – a runner does NOT get the kind of opportunities/access that that young man got. He was basically Schofields ‘personal’ runner that worked with him on multiple shows (unheard of for runners). It’s clear that Schofield was flaunting the relationship and everyone turned a blind eye. She won’t last on that show – if ITV want to save the show they have to clean house and she won’t walk away from this untarnished. While what he did is not on her – she also has enemies that are sticking the knife in.
Given all the coverage I suspect that they young man may come out and tell his sides of things – esp as the media are actively releasing photos of the 2 of them together. They are drip dripping the evidence that blows both ITVs and Hollys ‘we didn’t know/he lied to us’ excuses out of the water.
He signed a NDA with ITV and Phil, most likely he was paid off.
Reading this story in conjunction with the news about his brother makes me wonder if the two of them were sexually abused as children, by an older relative or family friend. Phil groomed a 12-year-old and his brother is in jail for abusing a boy of about the same age? It seems unusual that two brothers would both engage in such similar predatory behavior. Which makes me think it might have been learned. They say a lot of abusers were abused themselves.
This has nothing to do with him being gay. The victims in question could have been girls and it would be the same. Either way, you have a grown man preying on a child.
Ugly. All of this. Really ugly.
The brother allegedly began abusing his victim when the victim was 9 years old, & he did this when he worked as a policeman or was a voluntary peace officer of some sort.
Phil allegedly made contact with the young man in question in his own scandal, when he was a boy, of 11 years of age.
I have a difficult time believing he did not have any sexual contact with the young man, until he was 16 or 18 years old.
My assumptions could be wrong, of course. PS might be highly disciplined, & waited until everything was completely legal.
Either way, is appears that this young man didn’t have the emotional experience or maturity to handle a relationship with a much older man, & things went south quickly for him when Phil decided to end the relationship.
Phil was probably his first love, so it’s not uncommon for one to be devastated when things end with their first significant other, especially if one is quite young. We’ve all gone through it, even if with more age appropriate partners.
This is a big deal. Even bigger than the Matt Lauer scandal and that was huge! Phil met the man he had the “affair” with when he was a teenager and that teenager asked him to be his mentor to get into media. How would that young man be able to turn down any advances from the man getting who got him a job and is helping his career? How was he allowed to step down? Shouldn’t he have been fired? Also, Phil said he walked away from his agency. Wouldn’t his agency have dumped him and put out a public statement denouncing Phil’s behavior? How come Harry and Meghan are on the cover of every tabloid for weeks for eating avocado toast or shutting their own car doors but this man is not being denounced by every media outlet in Britain continuously? He should at least get the Lauer treatment so why isn’t he?
These rumours were rampant at the time when he ‘came out”, would things have been different if his brother was not convicted recently in a court of law??
Eamonn Holmes (very famous older male TV presenter who’s been on TV for donkey’s years, who left after his wife was fired for filing a complaint about Phil) just did a two-hour live TV interview pretty much ripping Phil to shreds and spilling all the dirt. He very very strongly implied that Phil got the young man hooked on drugs (there have been heavy drug rumours about both Phil and Holly for years) and that the young man developed a serious drug problem and needed a lot of money to feed his addiction.
It will ALL come out eventually – apparently Eamons wife is still in contact with the young man who he said he isn’t doing well. If the poor man is struggling with a drug addiction or in recovery this could put him back – apparently the young man was in love with Schofield.
Holmes is a dirtbag like Wooten. Schofield. Piers Morgan. Makes you wonder about all these morning shows. Especially with the men. Is there anyone decent on them?