Phillip Schofield has insisted that the young male runner he had an affair with is "free to speak".
Phillip Schofield slams rumours surrounding his affair
The 61-year-old star quit his role as presenter on 'This Morning' last week amid rumours of a feud with co-host Holly Willoughby shortly before he confirmed having an extramarital affair with a young runner who worked on the show but has now slammed rumours that he had kept him quiet with injunctions and a payoff.
Speaking in his first television interview since his exit from ITV, he told the BBC: "I was asked that earlier on - did I make him sign a nondisclosure agreement? No. Absolutely not. No, [he wasn't paid off]. He's free to speak but what he wants is all of this to go away. He wants a quiet life. He didn't want any of this to happen in the first place and I'm sure he completely regrets it. It was my fault, so he has nothing to regret because it was my fault. When the rumours started and then it came to light, both of us said 'What the hell is this?' and I said 'It'll go away' but then it started to grow legs and it got bigger and bigger. There was a superinjunction, it was said. It was said that I'd got him fired, all completely untrue."
"I spoke to him the night before I came out and he said 'That's amazing, I hope it goes okay.' He would never have outed me."
The former 'Dancing On Ice' host went on to add that the lie got "too big" for the pair of them and insisted he has had to speak out for the young man's mental health but noted that the investigation ITV claim to have carried out in 2020.
He added: "It got too big. The lie got too big for us. It just got enormous. It was growing and growing and growing and it crossed over from online to mainstream and that had to stop, for his mental health, it had to stop. I think if you have two people who are lying, then what can you do? He was asked quite a bit, I was asked a couple of times and it wasn't formal but I think, bearing in mind that there were two people who are absolutely intransigent in their denial, that it would have been pretty hard. He didn't ever want his name out there, he just wanted it all to go away."
"I am unaware of any of that. All I see is angry people shouting about a show they're not on anymore. I know what the issues are with two principal people, I don't like toxicity. From my point of view, and I think Holly would exactly the say the same, that is utterly untrue. If there was toxicity between two members of the team and they had beef with one another, that is nothing to do with us. The programme I love and the programme that I left, I have never seen that from my position. Or heard it, in fact. "
Phillip - who has daughters Molly, 30, and 27-year-old Ruby with now-estranged wife Stephanie Lowe - added that he messaged Holly on the day he announced he was stepping down from 'This Morning' and reiterated that while the relationship may have been consensual, it was still a "grave error" on his part.
He added: "I WhatsApped Holly on the day that I put the statement up. And I said 'I know you can't reply, you're probably not allowed to but please know that I am so desperately, desperately sorry. I adore Holly. I've always adored Holly, she's my TV sister. From my point of view, I don't have a problem with Holly at all. I would say to everyone, I would say to my family, my friends, my work colleagues, the public, to ITV, to my management, to everyone that I lied to - I am desperately, desperately Holly. But principally, I would like to apologise to him. It may have been consensual, it may have been fully legal but I shouldn't have allowed it to happen and that was a grave, grave error on my part. And I know that because of that, an absolutely innocent person is being persecuted.
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