Phillip 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”.
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: “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.”
Phillip Schofield said he sees “nothing ahead of me but blackness and sadness” following the fallout from his secret affair.
“I’m not in television any more, I don’t know what I am even remotely if I get through this,” he told the BBC.
“I don’t know even remotely how I move forward… what am I going to do with my days?
“I see nothing ahead of me but blackness and sadness and regret and remorse and guilt.
“I did something very wrong and then I lied about it consistently and you can’t live with that. How do you live with that?”
Phillip Schofield has said “I think I understand how Caroline Flack felt”, in an interview with the BBC’s Amol Rajan following his exit from This Morning last week after admitting to an “unwise but not illegal” relationship with a younger male colleague.
Love Island host Flack was found dead in February 2020 at the age of 40, and a coroner later ruled she took her own life after learning that prosecutors were going to press ahead with an assault charge following an incident with her boyfriend Lewis Burton.
Schofield, 61, said: “Last week, if my daughters hadn’t been there then I wouldn’t be here. And they’ve guarded me and won’t let me out of their sight, it’s like a weird numbness.
“I know that’s a selfish point of view. But you come to a point where you just think, how much are you supposed to take? If all of those people that write all that stuff, do they ever think that there’s actually a person at the other end?”.
Asked by Rajan, the BBC’s media editor, if he was strong enough to do the interview, Schofield replied: “I have to”.
When pressed as to why, Schofield said in reference to his former colleague: “Because 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… leave him alone…”.
Schofield resigned from ITV last week and was dropped by his talent agency YMU after admitting to the “unwise but not illegal” relationship.
Schofield said he was not a victim of the situation around his hidden affair, but added: “I feel a victim of hate after the event, and I think there will probably be a lot of people watching this now thinking ‘how dare you?’.
“It would be easier for me to say I don’t feel like a victim.
“What I feel a victim of is spun areas of non-factual information and gossip and nastiness.
“But I don’t look any more.”
Schofield added being dropped as an ambassador by the Prince’s Trust charity “broke my heart”.
“I can’t remember how long I’ve been there,” he told the BBC.
Phillip Schofield told the BBC that there were “a great many things” that had been said about him that were “categorically untrue”.
He also dismissed claims by GB News presenter Dan Wootton that he had been responsible for him being fired as a contributor on ITV show Lorraine, saying the accusations had come from Wootton’s “utter, total hatred” for him.
“That is I think the foundation of his utter, total hatred of me,” he said.
“You can’t do it. There is no way that any presenter on one show can get a contributor fired from another because they don’t like the fact they’re in the building.
“I don’t know where this came from… that I have more power than anybody else. Bless Dan, there is a lot of things that I think he said out of hatred for me.
“And now I’ve actually brought myself to a far far greater… you will never have done… I am done.”
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.
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.”
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.
