Carol Vorderman did not hold back (Picture: REX)
Carol Vorderman is the gift that keeps on giving when it comes to savage digs.
The former Countdown star, 62, did not hold back when Petronella Wyatt made a brutal comment towards This Morning host Alison Hammond.
During today’s episode (June 2), Alison, 48, became incredibly tearful as she and co-presenter Dermot O’Leary, 50, discussed Phillip Schofield’s tell-all interview amid the fallout of his affair confession.
‘I’m finding this really painful,’ she revealed. ‘I loved Phillip Schofield. It’s weird because I still love Phillip Schofield.’
She added that she knew what he did wasn’t right.
‘However, what he’s done is wrong. He’s admitted it. He’s said sorry. As a family, we’re really struggling to process everything. I never know what to say.’
Carol was keen to defend her friend (Picture: Ken McKay/ITV/Shutterstock)
Petronella Wyatt was with Boris Johnson between 2000 and 2004 (Picture: Alan Davidson/REX/Shutterstock)
The presenter recalled some advice from her late mum, who told her to ‘use the bible as your sat nav,’ and remember ‘those without sin cast the first stone.’
In response to the incredibly emotional segment, Petronella, 55, tweeted that Alison ‘isn’t fit’ to interview Prime Ministers, having interviewed Rishi Sunak just last week.
‘People who sob on tv @AlisonHammond are not fit to interview Prime Ministers. They are an embarrassment to themselves and to television’, the journalist tweeted.
And Carol wasn’t having it.
‘Here’s one of the very many women Boris Johnson bedded behind his wife’s back, trying to belittle my friend @AlisonHammond’, Carol began, going straight for the jugular.
‘Keep your pathetic bigoted views to yourself @PetronellaWyatt’, she warned.
Alison became incredibly emotional as she discussed Phillip Schofield’s new interview (Picture: ITV)
To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web
browser that
supports HTML5
video
Carol finished with a quote so savage it makes Simon Cowell’s talent show critiques look like compliments.
‘People who s**g Prime Ministers should keep quiet. They are an embarrassment to themselves and to womankind.’
Yikes.
Indeed, between 2000 and 2004, Petronella had an affair with the then editor of The Spectator and Conservative MP Boris Johnson.
The former PM had promised to leave his wife, and the affair had resulted in a terminated pregnancy and a miscarriage.
Petronella later discussed the affair with the press once her mother found out, with Boris fired from his shadow cabinet post at the time for lying about the affair after initially categorically denying it.
Meanwhile, in This Morning news, Alison has been hosting the show all week after Holly Willoughby, 42, went on an early half-term break.
The former daytime star said he is ‘utterly broken’ amid the fallout of his confession (Picture: BBC)
She’s now been confirmed to return on Monday, June 5, with Josie Gibson as her co-host.
As for Phillip, the former daytime star has said he’s ‘utterly broken’ amid the fallout of his confession, with his daughters ‘saving’ him from attempting suicide.
The former Dancing On Ice host also said he doesn’t feel he has a future in television now.
‘I am not sleeping, I am not eating,’ he told The Sun, having fled to be in Cornwall with his 87-year-old mother.
‘My mind is in constant, utter turmoil. I think back to regrets, forwards to… What do I do now? What I am going to do now?
More: Trending
‘I do not think I will be able to walk down a street ever again. It is like everybody knows.
‘I am dressed like this because I haven’t been able to go home. I can’t go out.’
‘I’ve lost everything. It’s all gone,’ he said frankly.
Phillip Schofield’s tell-all interview: The key points
Phillip Schofield bared all in interviews with The Sun and BBC amid the fallout of confessing to an affair with a This Morning runner. Here is what he said:
‘I did not groom him’
Schofield insists he is not a groomer, saying that while he met the former colleague while he was a teenager, their interactions were innocent and only became sexual when the runner was around 20/21 years old.
He said it never felt like an ‘abuse of power’ because they were ‘mates’.
The affair began in 2017
He has said that the affair began after a ‘consensual moment’ in his dressing room.
‘It was not a love affair, it was not a relationship, we were not boyfriends; we were mates,’ he insisted. ‘It wasn’t feelings (I was getting), it was more like mates: excitement.’
His wife is ‘very, very angry’
The affair took place while Schofield was married to wife Stephanie Lowe, with whom he shares two daughters.
On the moment he told his wife, he said: ‘She got off a plane and I phoned her up and texted saying, “I need to talk to you”. She called back and I told her. She was very, very angry.’
Schofield still wears his wedding ring, but explained that he and Stephanie are ‘separated’.
His daughters saved his life
Schofield confessed to feeling suicidal amid the fallout of his affair and the ‘relentless’ media attention.
His two daughters – Molly, 29, and Ruby, 27 – have been ‘afraid’ to leave his side and warned him: ‘Don’t you dare do this on our watch.’
‘If it hadn’t been for my girls last week, I wouldn’t be here.’
He has apologised to Holly Willoughby
After rumours of a fallout between the pair and after Holly Willoughby said she was lied to by Schofield after asking him about his affair, he has apologised to his former co-presenter.
He said: ‘I’ve lost my best friend. I let her down (Holly). I let that entire show down. I let the viewers down.
‘Holly did not know (about the romance). And she was one of the first texts that I sent, to say, “I am so, so sorry that I lied to you”.’
He will ‘die sorry’ to the runner he had the affair with
‘I have massive guilt, and regret. I’ve made a mistake, I’ve had an affair at work. I think my greatest apology must go to him. It has brought the greatest misery into his totally innocent life, his totally innocent family, his totally innocent friends.
‘It has brought the greatest grief to them.’
The colleague has not been named in the press for his privacy.
No pay-offs
Schofield denied allegations that the runner received hush money from ITV, saying the promotion he got wasn’t to ‘move him on’ but because of his own talents.
He also insisted that the young man did not sign an NDA preventing him from speaking out.
Comparing age gap backlash to ‘homophobia’
‘So yeah, there’s a difference. It’s accepted by Leonardo DiCaprio, it’s not accepted if it’s in the gay world,’ he said of age differences.
‘Attraction is attraction. It’s no different in the gay world as it is in the heterosexual world or in the lesbian world. There shouldn’t be a difference. This is where homophobia comes in.’
Eamonn Holmes is an ‘angry’ man
After Eamonn Holmes made a series of strong allegations against Schofield, he said the Irish TV presenter is just ‘angry’ he’s not on This Morning anymore.
He also continuously denied that This Morning is ‘toxic’.
Doesn’t think he’ll work in TV again
Schofield said it ‘breaks [my] heart’ to talk about TV in the past tense, but he doesn’t see a way back for him.
‘I do not think I will be able to walk down a street ever again. It is like everybody knows.
‘I’ve lost everything. It’s all gone,’ he said frankly.
‘Telly was my safe space, the one thing I loved. Now I don’t know if I will ever work on telly again.’
Carol went straight for the jugular.