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Phillip Schofield hits out at 'fake' This Morning colleagues who 'threw him under the bus'
30 September 2024, 09:29 | Updated: 30 September 2024, 09:41
Phillip Schofield has opened up about the demise of his TV career which unfolded last year, after he admitted to having an affair with a younger male colleague.
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Phillip Schofield, 62, has hit out at "fake" This Morning colleagues who "threw him under the bus" in a clip from his upcoming return to TV, a three-part appearance on Channel 5's Cast Away.
The former This Morning host, who co-starred on the ITV show alongside Holly Willoughby for over 10 years, will return to our screens on Monday, 30th September, with Phillip Schofield: Cast Away, a documentary-style series which sees him spend 10 days on a remote island, located off the coast of Madagascar.
Ahead of the first episode, Phillip has opened up about the demise of his career in a clip obtained by The Sun, claiming that his colleagues "threw him under the bus".
The father-of-two, who came out as gay in February 2020, is reported to say that "people can be fake" and that he feels "utter betrayal" by three specific people he's worked with in TV.
“There are a lot of amazing people in morning television," Phillip says in the clip: "I think there are only three sh**s. One of them is a coward who never stepped up in queue-gate. One is a coward, because they never stepped up when I was being battered, and the other is just brand-orientated. Not what you expect, not what you think you’re going to get.”
As most of us already know, Phillip's reference to queue-gate was the outrage that he and co-star Holly caused when they were accused of "skipping" the queue to see the late Queen lying in state.
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Also in the clip, which has been taken from the second episode of the three part series, Philip says he was "chucked under the bus" and that while he "could do the same," he's "not that sort of person".
Reflecting on the turbulent time in his career, Phillip said: “When what happened to me happened to me, it screwed up my favourite building in the world, and it pretty well blew away all those happy memories, and suddenly the place became hostile to me, and that was heartbreaking.
“And the people who did it to me know, they know how important that building was to me. They know that when you throw someone under a bus, you’ve got to have a really bloody good reason to do it. Brand, ambition is not good enough. It’s not a good enough reason to throw someone under a bus.”
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He adds: "When the tidal wave washed through and it washed everybody away. The ones that are still standing. They’re the ones that matter. And I thought: ‘How many friends do you need?’ I don’t need 200 fake friends. I’ve got, what? Ten, 15 friends that I would die for; they would die for me.”
It was last year that Phillip resigned from This Morning, taking to social media to announce the shocking news. Days later, the TV star went public with his affair with a younger male colleague at This Morning, adding that the relationship was “unwise but not illegal."
Now, during his time on Cast Away, Phillip claims that his relationship with the colleague would not have mattered if he was not gay: “I think another TV presenter or two might have done exactly the same thing, difference is, heterosexual, it’s not an unusual thing in the gay world for there to be a difference in age groups.”
Cast Away will air on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday night this week on Channel 5.
- Read more: ITV boss hits back at accusation 'vast majority knew' about Phillip Schofield affair
- Read more: Holly Willoughby This Morning statement in full: What did she say about Phillip Schofield?
