A young male colleague who had an affair with Phillip Schofield was only 15-years-old when they first met, it has emerged.
Schofield, 61, quit ITV on Friday after confessing he had a relationship with a much younger man who worked with him on This Morning.
Reports surfaced on Sunday claiming that the veteran TV presenter met the boy while giving a talk at a theatre school.
The schoolboy asked him for a job and Schofield reportedly arranged an interview for him. He later took on a role as an ITV production assistant when he turned 18.
Lawyers representing Schofield confirmed to the Standard that he met the boy when he was 15 but said the affair began after he started working at ITV.
It comes after Holly Willoughby launched a blistering attack on her former co-host Schofield on Saturday night – insisting he had lied to her and “hurt” her.
Willoughby, 42, said she had asked Schofield directly if the rumours of an affair were true and he had denied it.
She said in a statement: “It’s taken time to process yesterday’s news. When reports of this relationship first surfaced, I asked Phil directly if this was true and was told it was not. It’s been very hurtful to now find out that this was a lie.”
An ITV spokesperson said: “As we said on the record yesterday, This Morning is not under review and there’s no plans for the show to be axed.
“This Morning will return as normal tomorrow.”
Schofield stepped down from the show last weekend. On Friday he finally confessed he had helped a young man to get a job on the show and then had a relationship with him while still married to wife Stephanie Lowe.
He said the “relationship was unwise but not illegal” but that he had misled his lawyers and a newspaper, and “lied” to his employers, colleagues, friends, agents, the public and his family.
Schofield said: “I am making this statement via the Daily Mail to whom I have already apologised personally for misleading, through my lawyer who I also misled, about a story which they wanted to write about me a few days ago.
“The first thing I want to say is: I am deeply sorry for having lied to them, and to many others about a relationship that I had with someone working on This Morning. I did have a consensual on-off relationship with a younger male colleague at This Morning.
“Contrary to speculation, whilst I met the man when he was a teenager and was asked to help him to get into television, it was only after he started to work on the show that it became more than just a friendship. That relationship was unwise, but not illegal. It is now over.”
Schofield resigned from ITV and was immediately dropped by his agents YMU.
