Phillip Schofield doesn’t think he’ll work in TV again (Picture: BBC)
Phillip Schofield has said he’s ‘lost everything’ after admitting to his affair with a former colleague.
The ex-This Morning host, 61, made headlines last week after admitting to an affair with a much younger male colleague who worked as a runner on the ITV daytime show.
After lying about the relationship to colleagues, bosses, and his family, Schofield resigned from ITV and has since found his career in tatters.
He stepped down from hosting the British Soap Awards this week, with Jane McDonald due to take his place.
He has also been dropped from The Prince’s Trust, where he was an ambassador, and lost sponsorships.
Brands also no longer want to work with This Morning and it’s said guests are declining to do interviews.
Schofield says he can no longer walk down the street (Picture: PA)
In his first full interview since confessing to the affair – which Schofield insists was ‘unwise, but not illegal’, the former Dancing On Ice host said he doesn’t think he can come back from this.
‘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?
‘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 don’t think a charity will want to be associated with me.’
He added that he ‘understands’ why he was dropped by The Prince’s Trust but it ‘broke my heart’.
He says he’s ‘lost everything’ (Picture: Susan Andrews/SplashNews.com)
‘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.’
He also doesn’t know what his ‘identity’ is anymore.
‘I don’t know who I am now. What happens in six months time? What am I going to do?
‘I have the rest of my life now to try and plan for Steph and the girls, and hope that I can look after them.’
Stephanie Lowe is Schofield’s wife of 30 years and they share two daughters: Molly, 29, and Ruby, 27.
Schofield said his wife was ‘very, very angry’ when he told her about the affair, which she knew nothing about.
He’s credited his two daughters from pulling him back from suicidal thoughts (Picture: WireImage)
He also praised his daughters for how they have supported him.
Admitting he felt suicidal amid the fallout of his confession, the ex-daytime star said they ‘guarded’ him.
‘I am in a very bad way,’ he said. ‘Mentally, utterly, utterly broken.’
‘And if it hadn’t been for my girls last week I wouldn’t be here.
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‘I know I deserve it but they said, “Don’t you dare, we’re here to look after you”. I feel embarrassed and ashamed.
‘I have just felt like I was going lower and lower and lower and lower. And then, this bizarre, numbness washes over you, like a selfishness.’
Phillip Schofield statement in full
‘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.
‘When I chose to come out I did so entirely for my own wellbeing. Nobody “forced” me out. Neither I nor anyone else, to my knowledge, has ever issued an injunction, super or otherwise, about my relationship with this colleague, he was never moved on or sacked by or because of me. In an effort to protect my ex-colleague I haven’t been truthful about the relationship.
‘But my recent, unrelated, departure from This Morning fuelled speculation and raised questions which have been impacting him, so for his sake it is important for me to be honest now.
‘I am painfully conscious that I have lied to my employers at ITV, to my colleagues and friends, to my agents, to the media and therefore the public and most importantly of all to my family. I am so very, very sorry, as I am for having been unfaithful to my wife.
‘I have therefore decided to step down from the British Soap Awards, my last public commitment, and am resigning from ITV with immediate effect expressing my immense gratitude to them for all the amazing opportunities that they have given me.
‘I will reflect on my very bad judgment in both participating in the relationship and then lying about it. To protect his privacy, I am not naming this individual and my deepest wish is that both he and his family can now move on with their lives free from further intrusion, and that this statement will enable them to do so.
‘I ask the media now to respect their privacy. They have done nothing wrong, and I ask that their privacy should be respected.’
‘I do not think I will be able to walk down a street ever again.’