Phillip Schofield has denied that his former lover was underage when their affair began.
The former This Morning star spoke to the BBC after he admitted to having an on-off fling with a 'much younger' ITV co-worker when he was still married to his wife Stephanie Lowe. Phil also claims he was 'in a mess' with his sexuality when the affair started.
In an interview which aired on Friday, June 2, he was asked directly by the BBC’s Amol Rajan if he had any kind of sexual relationship when his former lover was underage. He responded: “God no. In my statement, it says ‘consensual relationship, fully legal’, I mean, that (the statement) was approved by both sides.”
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Recalling how the affair began, Phillip 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."
He went on to confirm that his colleague was 20 years old the first time the pair had any “kind of sexual contact”. He said they had last spoken when Phillip “engaged a lawyer for him”, adding: “He needed independent support. So that was the last time”.
Recounting the first time they met, Phillip told Amol: “I was invited by a friend of mine to go to open a drama school… But whether it was immediately or sometime after, he said, ‘will you follow him on Twitter, because he’s a fan’. So I said, ‘yeah, sure, no problem’, which I did.”
Amol added: “And he was what, 15 at the time?”. Phillip said: “I follow 11,300 people, and in all the time I’ve been on Twitter, there has never been any whiff of impropriety.”
He went on to say the pair were “hardly” in touch, but the young man had later gotten in contact to ask “if he could visit the studios, work experience-type of thing. I said come down and have a look, for sure, which he did.”
Phillip told Amol the man was 19 when he had first expressed interest in a television career, and when asked by Amol if, looking back on their messages, there was “any sense in which you were flirting with him?”, Phillip said: “No, I’ve been 41 years in television. Nothing like this before. No accusations. I mean, this is all accusations.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Phillip said the relationship was 'consensual' but still 'his fault.'
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