Phillip Schofield will "forever be associated" with Queuegate.
Phillip Schofield insists he and Holly Willougby did not jump the queue
The 61-year-old star - who sensationally quit his long-running role as host on 'This Morning' after 21 years last week before admitting that he had had an extramarital affair with a younger male colleague - was thought to have jumped the queue to see the Queen lying-in-state last September along with former co-host Holly Willoughby and while he admitted it was a "bad thing" to do, explained that it "doesn't matter now" because he isn't planning to go out anymore amid the scandal.
He told The Sun newspaper: "So we are forever now (associated)… it doesn’t matter now because I’m not going to go out any more … but forever now, you go to the butchers and someone says, ‘Oh do you want to (skip ahead)...?’ ‘No, no, I’ll stand here.’ I’m serious. I don’t ever throw anyone under the bus, but I have a very good instinct for these things and I knew it was a bad thing to do. But there is no reason that the justification that was given to me, shouldn’t have been true.
"You are journalists, loosely, and you are covering a massive story. Therefore I want you to cover it. As indeed, 700 other journalists did exactly the same thing.
“There was no jumping of the queue. We went and spoke to everyone in the queue. We went out and met everyone in the queue then walked all the way around the building, and went into the press centre with your accreditation.
"That got messed up because the production team didn’t want to give either of our emails out, so they used work emails which obviously didn’t match up with who we are."
The former 'Dancing on Ice' host went on to question why it was himself and Holly who were "singled out" as alleged queue jumpers as he recalled that he and Holly were "shell-shocked" by the reaction.
He added: "My face (says it all) - ‘we shouldn’t be here’. It didn’t feel right. What was sad was it wrecked what I wanted to do on the day. I wanted to go and stand at the end of my road and watch her go past as she went down to Windsor. Within seconds there was the photo of the two of us. Why us? Why not all of the other people? Why single us out?
"We were texting each other backwards and forwards afterwards. I said to Holly, ‘I knew I should have gone with my gut,’ and she said, ‘I know’. What are the two things you don’t screw up? The Queen and a queue."
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