‘I do not know a time I will be able to walk out of the door’
Phillip Schofield fears he will be spat on in the street after admitting to having an affair with a younger colleague at ITV.
In an interview with The Sun, the 61-year-old said he does not “know a time I will be able to walk out the door”.
Just over a week ago the former This Morning presenter confessed to lying to his former employee about the relationship but said it was “unwise but not illegal”.
The star met the man – who has not been publicly named – when he was 15. He was 19 when he first did work experience at This Morning in 2015, and 20 when he applied and succeeded in securing a job as a runner on the show. In 2019, he was promoted to Loose Women and left ITV in 2021.
Schofield has denied grooming the man and said the affair did not begin until the man was 20 after “something just happened between us that changed everything”.
He has vowed to never use social media again after being hounded by trolls and says he can’t even go out for milk since he admitted the affair.
Schofield told The Sun: “I do not know a time I will be able to walk out of the door. I don’t have any spirit. My friends tell me, ‘It will get better’. It won’t. Not now. Not this one.
“You watch all these layers of you slide away and slide away and slide away. The things that were dear to you. But I deserve it. It’s my fault. I deserve it.”
Schofield said he is getting by “hour by hour” with the support of his daughters, Molly and Ruby, and his friends.
He said he had never previously suffered abuse in the street, but now fears being shouted at or spat on: “Are they spitting on me because I had an affair at work and lied about it?”
In an interview with the BBC on Friday, Schofield told how he sees “nothing ahead of me but blackness and sadness, and regret, and remorse, and guilt”.
ITV has launched an external review and the channel’s chief, Dame Carolyn McCall will face questions from MPs next week.
He admitted that his television career was now probably over, saying: “I don’t know whether anyone would want my name linked to them. But that’s all gone. I have to come to terms with that.”
During his interview with The Sun, Schofield addressed the jailing of his brother, Timothy, for sex crimes, saying that he had worked closely with police.
“I still get texts from the detective because we were so pleased with the result. We did everything we could at the right time,” he said.
Related links:
Phillip Schofield compares his dating life to Leonardo Di Caprio’s
Phillip Schofield says his career is over and he’s ‘lost everything’
Phillip Schofield brands age gap backlash as ‘homophobia’ in tell-all interview
Phillip Schofield dropped by Prince’s Trust as ITV faces questions from MPs
