ITV bosses have said both Phillip Schofield and his younger lover "repeatedly denied" allegations of a relationship until the former This Morning presenter departed ITV and formally apologised. ITV chief executive Dame Carolyn McCall faced questions from MPs alongside ITV managing director Kevin Lygo and general counsel and company secretary Kyla Mullins about Schofield's exit during Wednesday morning's Culture, Media and Sport Committee session in Parliament.
Dame Carolyn told MPs the "imbalance of power, the imbalance of dynamics" made the relationship "deeply inappropriate", and ITV would have taken action, but no evidence of the relationship appeared during on-going reviews. She said "we were repeatedly told nothing was happening", and both men denied it "both formally and informally".
"There was only hearsay and rumour and speculation... Nobody on the board would have turned a blind eye to something as serious as this," she said.
