Former This Morning presenter Phillip Schofield has told the BBC he has ‘lost everything’ in the wake of his affair with a younger male colleague and spoke of the criticism he has faced since, saying: ‘Do you want me to die? Because that’s where I am.’
Schofield, 61, who resigned from ITV last week and was dropped by his agency YMU after admitting to an ‘unwise, but not illegal’ affair with a younger male colleague made the dramatic comments in his first round of interviews since the scandal broke.
The BBC is set to release an interview with Schofield being grilled by Amol Rajan tonight.
In one exchange. Schofield tells the interviewer: ‘It is relentless, and it is day after day, after day after day.
‘If you don’t think that that is going to have the most catastrophic effect on someone’s mind… do want me to die? Because that’s where I am.
Phillip Schofield broke his silence yesterday, saying he’s ‘broken and ashamed’ but not a groomer in his first interview since admitting an affair
The BBC is set to release an interview (pictured) with Schofield being grilled by Amol Rajan (right)
‘I have lost everything.’
And he added in his BBC interview: ‘There is an innocent person here who didn’t do anything wrong, who is vulnerable and probably feels like I do.
‘And I just have to say stop with him, ok with me, but stop with him.
‘Leave him alone now.’
In a trailer released yesterday, the presenter told BBC News: ‘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 clarified why his statement last week said the affair was ‘unwise’, and called it a ‘very, very grave error’.
He added: ‘It was consensual, but it was my fault.’
The former This Morning star said the affair ‘never came across’ as an abuse of power because he and his lover were ‘mates’.
Schofield told The Sun: ‘I was unprofessional, one time, in a 41-year career. There is no excuse.
‘No one did anything wrong apart from me.’
Schofield said their affair had begun in 2017 following a ‘consensual moment’ in his dressing room.
Despite this, he shut down claims that the pair were boyfriends, claiming it was ‘not a love affair, it was not a relationship, we were not boyfriends; we were mates’.
During the interview, Schofield was seen taking drags from a light blue vape as he answered questions about whether he had groomed his lover.
Phillip Schofield broke his silence tonight, saying he’s ‘broken and ashamed’ but not a groomer in his first interview since admitting an affair
During the interview, Schofield (pictured on This Morning with Holly Willoughby) was seen taking drags from a light blue vape as he answered questions about whether he had groomed his lover.
Pictured: Phillip Schofield and his wife Stephanie Lowe are seen with their daughters Ruby and Molly at the premiere of Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald in 2018
Throughout the interview, Schofield offered a number of apologies, including to his co-presenter of 14 years Holly Willoughby and his wife of 30 years, Stephanie Lowe.
But he said his ‘greatest apology’ over the fallout from the affair was to his former lover.
He said: ‘It has brought the greatest misery into his totally innocent life, his totally innocent family, his totally innocent friends. It has brought the greatest grief to them.’
He added: ‘I am deeply sorry and I apologise to him because I should have known better. I should have acted the way I have always acted. I should not have done it.
‘I’m sorry. And I will forever be sorry. I will die sorry. I am so deeply mortified.’
Phillip Schofield said he thought it ‘looked shocking’ when an old photograph, featuring both him and the man who would later become his lover, emerged online.
Meanwhile, Phillip Schofield’s loyal wife has been left both furious and devastated by his admission that he had an affair with a much younger colleague during their marriage.
Friends say that Ms Lowe, the mother of the presenter’s two grown-up daughters, had no idea he was in a relationship because Schofield had always described the man as a friend and colleague.
It can also be revealed that the former This Morning star’s eldest daughter Molly only found out about her father’s statement to the Daily Mail in which he admitted lying over the relationship with the man just minutes before the story broke.
Friends say that she was at work at YMU, the talent agency that represented Schofield for 35 years, when she found out.
Staff there say she was in such shock she had to be comforted before going home.
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Body language expert JUDI JAMES reveals what Phil DIDN’T say out loud in his interviews
Phillip Schofield looked ‘diminished and hunched’ with a ‘vulnerable gaze’ as he broke his silence after confessing to an affair with a much younger colleague, a body language expert claimed last night.
The former This Morning star sat down yesterday to speak for the first time since leaving the ITV programme, saying he will ‘die sorry’ for the ‘grief’ he inflicted on his young male lover.
Body language expert Judi James told MailOnline that while Schofield was quizzed on his affair, which he previously dubbed ‘unwise, but not illegal’, he sucked on and massaged his blue vape ‘like a stress ball’.
The former host had ‘his shoulders slumped’ with ‘deep groves at the sides of his mouth suggesting misery’ as he categorically denied that he did not groom his former lover.
As Schofield told of his pitiful text to his co-host Holly Willoughby to tell him how ‘deeply, deeply sorry’ he was for lying to her about his secret relationship, Ms James told MailOnline he had a ‘classical facial full of sorrow’.
READ MORE: Read Judi’s full analysis here
Phillip Schofield looked ‘diminished and hunched’ with a ‘vulnerable gaze’ last night breaking his silence to admit he is a ‘broken’ man since confessing to his affair
Body language expert Judi James told MailOnline that while Schofield was quizzed on his affair he sucked on and massaged his blue vape ‘like a stress ball’
In a separate grilling by BBC’s Amol Rajan, he was quizzed over a photograph which showed him attending the young man’s drama school when he was still a pupil and only 15-years-old
As declares he categorically did not groom the young man, he ‘protests his innocence visually by throwing his hands out and upward, shaking his head, clutching his vape in one hand’