Phillip Schofield has said he “didn’t tell anybody” about his affair with his former This Morning colleague but disagreed with any implication of “grooming” the young man. Asked by the BBC’s Amol Rajan about who on his team knew about the relationship, the presenter said: “Nobody to my knowledge. I mean somebody has to know something for there to be a rumour later on. I didn’t believe that anybody knew.”
Schofield reiterated that he never told his former co-host Holly Willoughby, adding: “That’s a bigger question because our make-up room was like a sanctuary so you tell everything in that room. Holly knows everything about me, I know everything about Holly. Holly did not know. Nobody knew. I didn’t tell anybody.”
Rajan said the crux of the issue is whether there was a potential “abuse of power”, adding that it might be perceived as “grooming”.
“The circumstances are as follows: you met someone who was a child, you were in a position of power over them. You use your power eventually to give them something they craved, which was shot at a job in the media. You nurtured a relationship and then that relationship became sexual. And they might ask, what’s the difference between that and grooming?”
Schofield replied: “Well, I would say that the initial list of things was not right anyway.
“Because 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 talking to someone no matter what age they are? Does that mean that if you are following anyone on Twitter that you absolutely don’t talk to anybody else or you don’t give advice? So I disagree with the summation that you just gave, because that does paint a very grave picture.”
Schofield has denied allegations that his former This Morning colleague was made to sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) to keep him silent over their affair and feels the truth is coming out now as “the lie got too big for both of us”.
The BBC’s Amol Rajan asked: “Do you know if he has signed an NDA, a non-disclosure agreement, preventing him from speaking?”
Schofield said: “Did I make him sign an NDA? No, absolutely not.”
He also said there is no injunction or any NDA preventing media coverage of their relationship and that his former lover was not paid off for his silence.
“I mean, what he wants is for all of this to go away. He wants a quiet life,” Schofield added of his former colleague’s stance on the matter.
Asked why he believes the story is coming out now, Schofield said: “The lie got too big for both of us. It just got enormous.
“It was growing and growing and growing. And it crossed over from the from online to mainstream news.”
Schofield has denied he had any sexual interaction with his former This Morning colleague when the younger man was underage, but said their later affair was “unforgivable”.
Asked directly by the BBC’s Amol Rajan if he had any kind of sexual relationship when his former lover was underage, Schofield said: “God no.
“In my statement, it says ‘consensual relationship, fully legal’, I mean, that (the statement) was approved by both sides.”
Recalling how the affair began, Schofield said: “He’d been working at the show for a few months and we’d become mates, we were mates. Around the studios we’d hang out together, chat to each other, that sort of stuff.
“And then in my dressing room one day something happened which obviously, I will regret forever for him and for me – mostly him.
“That happened maybe four or five times over the next few months, and I know it’s unforgivable but we weren’t boyfriends, we weren’t in a relationship.
“I was really in a mess with my sexuality at the time and it just happened.”
