Phillip Schofield has said he first started following his former lover on Twitter when he was aged 15 after he was asked to do so by a friend.
In an interview with Amol Rajan on the BBC, the former This Morning presenter explained he was invited by a friend to go to a school, something he said he has done “thousands of times”.
Schofield claimed he was later asked to follow “a fan” back on Twitter, who was aged 15 at the time – to which the presenter agreed.
“I follow 11,300 people and in all the time that I’ve been on Twitter there has never been any whiff of impropriety”, he added.
Schofield said the last time he interacted with his former lover was a “couple of weeks” ago when he organised a lawyer for him because he needed “independent” support.
Schofield later confirmed he is paying for the man’s legal advice.
Schofield said that the first time he had any “kind of sexual contact” with his former This Morning colleague, the younger man was 20.
He said the pair had last spoken when Schofield “engaged a lawyer for him”, adding: “He needed independent support. So that was the last time”.
Recounting the first time they met, Schofield told Rajan: “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.”
Rajan added: “And he was what, 15 at the time?”.
Schofield 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.”
Schofield told Rajan the man was 19 when he had first expressed interest in a television career, and when asked by Rajan if, looking back on their messages, there was “any sense in which you were flirting with him?”, Schofield said: “No, I’ve been 41 years in television. Nothing like this before. No accusations. I mean, this is all accusations.”
Schofield denied he had any sexual interaction with his former This Morning colleague when the younger man was underage, but said their later affair was “unforgivable”.
Asked directly by the Amol Rajan if he had any kind of sexual relationship when his former lover was underage, Schofield said: “God no.
“In my statement, it says ‘consensual relationship, fully legal’, I mean, that (the statement) was approved by both sides.”
Recalling how the affair began, Schofield 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.”
