Phillip Schofield threatens to expose ex colleagues after claiming he was 'thrown under bus' in affair scandal
2 October 2024, 10:18 | Updated: 2 October 2024, 12:19
Phillip Schofield has threatened to expose former co-workers after the axed This Morning presenter claimed he had been 'thrown under the bus'.
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Schofield made a shock return to television this week after 16 months off the air for what he described as an "unwise but not illegal" affair with a younger runner.
Speaking in the second episode of Channel 5's Cast Away, where Schofield, 62, is left on his own on a desert island, the presenter said he was "thrown under the bus" by the people he worked with during the scandal.
"People just went, who I thought were my friends and they just went and that's like 'what the hell'."
He told the camera: "I have been chucked under a bus, and I could drive the same bus over so many people but I'm not that sort of person, I never have been.
"But if I sit down with a camera and the light's going who knows what I'll say."
Later in the second episode of the three-part desert island series, the former star said: "I miss parts of being on TV, certainly. I miss most of it, if I’m honest, I miss most of it.
"But there are bits that I really, really, really don’t miss. You learn a lot about people, I don’t miss that."
In the first episode of Cast Away, Schfield blamed his brother for his departure from ITV - where he hosted shows like Dancing On Ice and The Cube - saying he was “fired for someone else’s crime”.
Schofield revealed he would “never in a million years” decide to return to daytime TV. He said he had always been “open and honest with everyone at work about what was happening” with his brother Timothy.
His 54-year-old brother was convicted in April 2023 of 11 sexual offences involving a child between October 2016 and October 2019, including two of sexual activity with a child.
On the Channel 5 show he said he refused “to name and refuse to acknowledge” his brother who he claimed he had "absolutely no qualms whatsoever in shopping” to police, who he said had "praised" him for getting “justice done”.
The Oldham-born presenter said: "Even though they knew all of the facts the papers painted me out to be some sort of complicit agent.
"That was when my world started to collapse. My poor mum, had to tell her about that member of the family. To break that to your mother is tough.
"And I had to go through everything with the hierarchy at ITV. The full entire story so that they knew I hadn’t done anything wrong. The full story."
He continued: "Everything came to a head the day before he was sentenced when my agent called.
"My phone rang and I picked it up, ‘mate, are you somewhere quiet’ which is never a good sign, ’I’ve got a bit of a shock, I’m afraid you’ve been let go from This Morning’. What? ‘Yeah that’s it, it’s done. You’re not going back on Monday’.
"What? because of what? ‘Think it’s the publicity, mate’, that’s got nothing to do with me, that has nothing to do with me.
"Why would I be sacked for something someone else did? I’ve just been fired because of him. Because I was becoming more of a story than the programme.
"It was better for the show, better for the channel. And I agreed to say that I’d resigned because it would be neater for everybody.
"I was always open and honest with everyone at work about what was happening with my brother. I was fired for the bad publicity, for someone else’s crime.
"And the thing is about a week later, I blew my own wheels off with everything else (his affair), because I thought the only way to even begin to put this right for everybody is to do a full mea culpa."
Schofield admitted to a secret affair with a younger male colleague at ITV, but strongly denies accusations of grooming.
Despite the claims on the Channel 5 show that he was dropped from This Morning, when leaving the programme more than a year ago, Schofield claimed he had resigned. At the time Schofield denied he had been “forced out”, and said he was “so very, very sorry” for lying to ITV, his colleagues, wife and friends.
