Holly Willoughby isn't speaking to Phillip Schofield…

Holly Willoughby isn't speaking to Phillip Schofield as apology text goes unanswered

Phillip Schofield has spoken about the state of his friendship with former co-host Holly Willoughby following his high profile departure from ITV and This Morning after almost two decades. Schofield said he has “lost everything” in the wake of his affair with a younger male colleague and told of a “catastrophic effect” on his mind.

The former This Morning presenter, 61, said the fallout from the revelations had been “relentless” and urged the media to leave his former lover “alone now”. In his first interviews since leaving the broadcaster and This Morning, he said he was “utterly broken and ashamed” but denied claims he had “groomed” the man.

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’.”

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Phillip, 61, has said the pair have broken all contact with each other following his departure from the show after two decades, and says his brother's imprisonment made her distance herself from him.

The Mirror reports he says Holly didn't know about the romance but was one of the first people he text when the news broke. “She didn’t reply and I understand why she didn’t reply, as well," he told The Sun.

Speaking to the BBC’s Amol Rajan, he told of the criticism he has faced since admitting the affair, saying: “Do you want me to die? Because that’s where I am.”

He said he saw “nothing ahead” of him and he had to talk about his career in television “in the past tense”.

He said: “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 you want me to die? Because that’s where I am.

“I have lost everything.” Referring to the Love Island host who took her own life in February 2020, he added: “I think I understand how Caroline Flack felt.”

The former Dancing on Ice presenter told The Sun newspaper the fallout from his secret affair had brought “the greatest misery” to his former lover’s “totally innocent life”.

And he added in his BBC interview: “There is an innocent person here who didn’t do anything wrong, who is vulnerable and probably feels like I do.

“And I just have to say stop with him, ok with me, but stop with him.

“Leave him alone now.”

Prior to Schofield's exit from This Morning, it was rumoured that his friendship with Holly Willoughby had "cooled" (ITV)

It comes after ITV boss Dame Carolyn McCall was called to a parliamentary committee on June 14 to answer questions about the broadcaster’s approach to safeguarding and complaint handling following Schofield’s exit.

In a letter seen by the PA news agency on Wednesday, the chief executive revealed the broadcaster had instructed barrister Jane Mulcahy KC of Blackstone Chambers, to carry out an external review of the facts.

It also said the broadcaster had “reviewed” its records and said “when rumours of a relationship” between Schofield and an employee of ITV emerged, they “both categorically and repeatedly denied the rumours”.