Piers Morgan has said that the intense media scrutiny around Phillip Schofield needs to stop.
The broadcaster, 58, voiced his concern for the shamed TV presenter following his sitdown interviews with The Sun and BBC on Thursday.
In addition to discussing his exit from ITV daytime show This Morning and admission to having an “unwise but not illegal” affair with a much younger colleague, Schofield, 61, said he has suffered suicidal thoughts.
He also compared himself to TV presenter Caroline Flack, who comitted suicide after finding herself at the centre of a media storm when she found her career in tatters and life turned upside down after being accused of hitting her boyfriend with her phone while slept following a drunken argument.
Taking to social media, Morgan wrote on Twitter: “Unless Phillip Schofield’s ex-lover contradicts his version of events to The Sun [and the] BBC, then it’s time to stop this relentless persecution of a guy who’s lost everything and looks right on the edge to me.”
The former Good Morning Britain host continued: “He doesn’t seem to have committed any crime, and he’s not a [government] minister.”
Morgan previously defended Schofield prior to his affair admission.
In an op-ed forThe Sun, he said he found the aftermath of Schofield’s exit “brutal to watch” and yet “entirely unsurprising”.
“One minute Schofield was the undisputed king of morning TV and fast heading to bona fide national treasure status – the next he’s a dethroned, shamed, vilified, national disgrace and social media laughing stock,” he wrote.
“Phillip’s not the evil monster he’s being painted as, nor is he the angel his previously halo-clad reputation suggested.
“One thing’s for sure, what’s happened to him is further evidence that the abyss-like depths of ruthless backstabbing in the world of daytime television makes even the seething cesspit of Westminster politics seem like an oasis of loyalty by comparison.”
