Phillip Schofield has addressed the 'relentless' fallout from revelations after the presenter left ITV, as he asked in an interview, 'do you want me to die?'. The former This Morning presenter spoke out in an interview with the BBC's Amol Rajan, released on Friday morning, June 2.
It comes a week after Phillip released a statement confirming an 'unwise but not illegal relationship' with a younger male ITV staff employee. This led to him leaving ITV and being dropped by his talent agency 'YMU', The MEN reports.
In the interview, Phillip said he has 'lost everything' and explained how the ordeal has had a 'catastrophic effect' on his mind. The 61 year old also spoke out to urge the media to leave his former lover alone.
He said in the interview: “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. I have lost everything.”
He added: "There is an innocent person here who didn’t do anything wrong, who is vulnerable and probably feels like I do,” he said.
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“And I just have to say stop with him, ok with me, but stop with him. Leave him alone now.”
Schofield was also 'emphatic' in his denial over allegations that he had groomed the man. Yesterday, he told The Sun: “I did not (groom him). "There are accusations of all sorts of things. It never came across that way (an abuse of power) because we’d become mates. I don’t know about that."
And he also denied there had ever been a “feud” between him and his former co-presenter and “TV sister” Holly Willoughby. “I’ve lost my best friend. I let her down,” he told The Sun.
“Holly did not know. And she was one of the first texts that I sent, to say, ‘I am so, so sorry that I lied to you’.” The pair had presented This Morning together since 2009, with Willoughby due to return to the show on Monday after the half-term break, having taken an early holiday after news of Schofield’s departure emerged.
Alison Hammond and Dermot O’Leary have been among the presenters hosting the programme in recent weeks. Schofield went on to say that his “greatest apology” over the fallout from the affair was to his former lover and that he would “die sorry” for what he had done.
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