It has been claimed that Phillip Schofield is 'a change man' after he was seen in public for the first time since he gave two bombshell interviews admitting to an affair with a younger male employee at ITV sparking a scandal centred around This Morning.
Schofield, 61, announced he was 'stepping back' from the ITV daytime show after more than 20 years last month after saying the show had 'become the story' due to rumours of a 'feud' behind the scenes between him and co-host Holly Willoughby, with claims the pair were 'barely speaking'.
Less than a week later and the veteran broadcaster then announced he'd be leaving ITV altogether after he admitted to lying to his employers, and others about an "unwise but not illegal" affair with a younger male colleague, confessing that he concealed the truth about the romance.
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And when Holly, 42, returned to the programme for the first time since the news broke, she made a tearful statement addressing the elephant in the room and claimed she had been 'shaken' by recent events and had been 'let down'.
She has, however, since pressed on with her commitment to hosting on the popular programme while ITV has since faced questioning about the broadcaster’s approach to safeguarding and complaint handling.
Dame Carolyn McCall has appeared before a parliamentary committee last Wednesday (June 14) alongside ITV managing director Kevin Lygo and general counsel and company secretary Kyla Mullins about the This Morning row during the Culture, Media and Sport Committee session.
While being quizzed during the session, Dame Carolyn said the "imbalance of power" made Schofield's relationship "deeply inappropriate". She said: "And we have policies that say that very clearly." However, she said they had no evidence of the relationship. "It was repeatedly denied by both individuals," she said, adding that no one in the team said they knew anything either.
When asked how long she knew about rumours relating to Schofield's affair, McCall said she'd been looking into what was happening in December 2019, but when Schofield came out in February 2020 the rumours intensified.
That was the first time things "got really febrile", she said. Mullins also echoed this, saying "we first became aware" of speculation that was published in a newspaper article on December 6, 2019. They also confirmed ITV was funding Schofield's counselling after he requested support from his former employer.
And for the first time since he sat down with the Daily Mail and the BBC early this month to talk about what had happened, Schofield was seen out in Cornwall as he was said to be marking his mother's 87th birthday.
It comes after he has remained completely out of the spotlight, admitting that he has felt 'scared' to go out in public due to fears of being abused or 'spat at'. However, he has now broken cover, being spotted sporting a blue T-shirt and off-white shorts, which he matched with a pair of blue and white Converse trainers.
Body language expert Judi James has now told the Mirror that she feels as though Schofield is now a 'changed man', with the controversy not only taking a toll on his emotions and mental health, but also his appearance after he admitted to losing a substantial amount of weight amid the turmoil of his career ending.
"There are deep furrows etched on his forehead and deep grooves down either side of his mouth," Judi shared. "His face looks jowly from side view but that’s possibly a result of the weight he said he had dropped since the drama started. But otherwise Schofield looks tanned and relatively relaxed here, like a man who has taken what must be his first break from work in several decades."
And while Phillip looked like a shell of himself during his BBC tell-all interview, it appears that he is slowly getting back to himself, with Judi predicting that he is in a more 'good humoured' mood around his beloved mum.
"We’re so used to seeing the signature Schofield perky smile on our screens that an unsmiling Philip does look dramatically dour but, despite the lip clamp, his one raised brow and the micro-curve of his lips suggests a good humoured response to the person he is with," Judi explained.
"There’s no sign of tension in his shoulders or his legs but, in a nod to his previously busy professional lifestyle, he seems to be clutching his phone, keys and what looks like the ever-present vape we saw him using in his interviews, all in the one hand."
