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Phillip Schofield accused of LYING about This Morning sacking as ITV insiders say Cast Away comments are ‘simply untrue’
ITV insiders have reportedly hit back at claims they fired the shamed star
PHILLIP Schofield has been accused of lying about being sacked by ITV on his new TV show, Cast Away.
The shamed TV presenter, 62, made his comeback to screens on Monday night for a new documentary series where he’s stranded on a desert island for 10 days.
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During the three-episode series, which continues tonight and tomorrow night, Schofield blames his brother for being "fired" from his lucrative This Morning and Dancing on Ice gigs.
In April 2023, Timothy Schofield was convicted of 11 sexual offences involving a child – including emotionally blackmailing a child into sex acts.
Phillip believes the discovery of Timothy's crimes caused ITV to edge him out before firing him.
However, according to , ITV insiders are highly refuting the claims, saying: “Phillip's new comments are simply untrue, he is lying again.”
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Instead, they claim he quit when the fallout of the conviction – combined with his “unwise but not illegal” affair with a 19-year-old runner on This Morning – became too much.
'We stood by him through his brother's court case and he then stepped away when things became too much,” the source said.
“He then admitted himself he had been lying about an affair and he resigned from ITV altogether.
“We didn't sack him, he lied to us and then he resigned, there is not much else to say and we as a network just want to move on.”
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Schofield has vowed he would “never return” to work for ITV following the fallout of his exit.
On Cast Away, in scenes set to air on Wednesday night, Schofield speaks out about what happened with Timothy, saying he was “open and honest” about what was happening with his colleagues at work.
Saying he “refuses to name or acknowledge” his sibling, the star tells cameras he had “no qualms” in handing him over to police, claiming he was “praised” for doing so by officers.
Watch as Eamonn Holmes rants he’s ‘proud to have thrown Philip Schofield under the bus’ after This Morning scandal
But he adds this marked the beginning of the end of his career, claiming: “Even though they knew all of the facts the papers painted me out to be some sort of complicit agent.
“That was when my world started to collapse. My poor mum, I had to tell her about that member of the family. To break that to your mother is tough.”
“Everything came to a head the day before he was sentenced when my agent called,” he continues, saying he later got a phone call from his manager to say he had been let go from This Morning.
“What? because of what? 'Think it's the publicity, mate', that's got nothing to do with me, that has nothing to do with me,” he told cameras of the conversation.
'Why would I be sacked for something someone else did? I've just been fired because of him, because I was becoming more of a story than the programme.
'It was better for the show, better for the channel. And I agreed to say that I'd resigned because it would be neater for everybody.”
“I was fired for the bad publicity, for someone else's crime,” he added. “And the thing is, about a week later, I blew my own wheels off with everything else [the affair], because I thought the only way to even begin to put this right for everybody is to do a full mea culpa.”
Cast Away verdict
By Rod McPhee
OVER three nights - and three hour-long episodes - Phillip Schofield has been bearing his soul in new Channel 5 show Cast Away.
And it's basically a chance for the former This Morning host to explain the circumstances that saw him leave the show last year.
To put it mildly, he left under something of a cloud, admitting he'd had a fling with a much younger runner on the programme. But in the C5 show he presents his own versions of events - one which is at odds with the narrative that emerged at the time.
He was portrayed as a man who'd had an "unwise" affair, who'd resigned as a result and had let many of his colleagues down.
But in Cast Away Philip insists he was fired by ITV and not for the affair, but because of the bad publicity that surrounded the crimes of his paedophile brother. He summed it up best when he claimed he'd been "pushed under a bus."
After watching Cast Away what you're left with is something rather confusing, however.
Did Philip think he'd done something wrong by having the fling with the runner, or not? For example, he said he wouldn't have been slammed for it quite so much if it were a heterosexual fling.
He said he: "would have received a pat on the back for having an affair with a woman." This infers that the only thing wrong with it was that it was a same sex fling. So why does he also say: "I will be forever sorry. I screwed up. I made a mistake."
The answer, I suspect, is that the whole affair was a murky business. There were so many blurred lines around appropriateness, professionalism and honesty.
The only firm conclusion you can draw from the show is that Phillip himself isn't ENTIRELY sure to what extent He was guilty of wrongdoing.
Amid the confusion, what will the viewing public think? I suspect that this will leave those who disliked Phillip to feel even more suspicious of him.
Those who backed him, will feel reassured too. But those who still aren't sure what to think will be none-the-wiser - and I'm not sure if that's what Phillip would have wanted.
Speaking Out
In the wake of the documentary being announced, celebrities including Vanessa Feltz, Kerry Katona and Eamonn Holmes have all spoken out about Schofield's comeback.
While Vanessa said she was interested to see how the show developed, Kerry branded it a "self-indulgent move" on the side of the This Morning presenter.
But the biggest scathing review came from Eamonn Holmes, who went on a rant on GB News about his former This Morning co-worker.
Holmes didn't mince his words as he admitted he was "proud" to be considered one of the people who "threw Schofield under the bus".
Eamonn was quick to interject: "Well if I'm one of the people who threw him under the bus I am very proud to have done it and protected children. People who are under age."
Eamonn then said the instance was being made out to be "one situation" and added: "I think he [Phil] is where he deserves to be."
He bluntly added Schofield was "absolutely addicted to fame."
He added: "I know people in junior positions in television and if I thought they were being taken advantage of in such a way then somebody needs to stand up and say 'people like him shouldn't exist and shouldn't be allowed'."
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Schofield has always vehemently denied that he groomed the runner with which he had an affair.
Cast Away continues tonight at 9pm on Channel 5.
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