Phillip Schofield has said he understands 'how Caroline Flack felt' in a bombshell interview with the BBC.
The former This Morning star spoke to the broadcaster's media editor Amol Rajan after he admitted to having an 'unwise but not illegal' affair with a 'much younger' ITV colleague last week. Phillip was dropped by both ITV and his talent agency YMU and said he has since 'lost everything'.
Love Island host Caroline 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.
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Phillip, 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 Amol 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…”.
Elsewhere in the interview, which aired on Friday morning, Phillip spoke 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 you want me to die? Because that’s where I am. I have lost everything.”
Phillip was also 'emphatic' in his denial over allegations that he had groomed the man.
Yesterday, he told The Sun: “I did not (groom him). There are accusations of all sorts of things. It never came across that way (an abuse of power) because we’d become mates. I don’t know about that."
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 Holly 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.
Phillip 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.
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