‘The past few years were utterly brutal… I’ve got used to my new life’: Phillip Schofield opens up after the scandal that ended his career… as insiders reveal what he REALLY thinks of Holly Willoughby
Phillip Schofield’s day begins by walking his chocolate cockapoo Alfie around a leafy enclave of west London.
Those who live near his detached Victorian property in Chiswick are still star-struck when they see the former presenter. Even more so if Schofield stops to chat.
But these moments of friendly banter have been a long time in the making.
It was three years ago this week, in May 2023, that Phil sensationally stood down as the host of ITV’s This Morning.
His exit followed a dramatic fallout with his co-presenter and best friend Holly Willoughby – prompted by her belief that Phil wasn’t being honest about a relationship with a much younger colleague, which he claimed was just a friendship. When TV bosses took her side, Phil knew he had to leave. Just two weeks later, in a stunning mea culpa email sent to me on May 26, Phil admitted he had indeed had an affair with the runner – more than 30 years his junior – and lied about it.
‘I did have a consensual on-off relationship with a younger male colleague at This Morning,’ he told me.
‘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.’
Three years ago Phillip Schofield sensationally stood down as the host of ITV ’s This Morning. His exit followed a dramatic fallout with his co-presenter and best friend, Holly Willoughby
Phil admitted he had an affair with a runner – more than 30 years his junior – and apologised for lying to his family. (Pictured with his wife Stephanie and their daughters, Molly and Ruby)
He described his affair as ‘unwise but not illegal’. After 21 years of hosting This Morning, one of the most recognisable – and highest-paid – faces in British showbusiness had been felled. With his reputation in tatters, Phil’s life changed overnight.
Despite representing him for decades, his talent agency YMU dumped him after 35 years and many of his friends scurried off as he became persona non grata.
While he had split from Stephanie, his wife of 27 years, after coming out as gay in 2020, the separation was now formalised in divorce.
But this week, the 64-year-old broke his silence about his life three years on from one of the biggest scandals to hit the world of television.
The former Dancing On Ice host insisted to me he was ‘content and happy’ with his new life out of the spotlight and he has now accepted he has no future in television – something, say those who know him, that would have been very difficult to get his head around.
‘Life is really calm and drama free now,’ Schofield told me in an email. ‘I decided a while ago that I just wanted a quiet life with family, friends I can trust and my dog.
‘Therefore I keep my head down as much as possible.
‘The past few years were, as you know, utterly brutal on so many levels and I came to terms with the fact that there was no way back.
‘I’ve got used to my new life and I’m content with that and happy.’
His talent agency dumped him after 35 years and he is unlikely to have a future in television, but Phil told Katie Hind he is ‘content’ with his new, quieter life out of the spotlight
Holly and Phil – once daytime telly’s golden couple – were so close they bought neighbouring holiday villas. But he was furious at her decision to distance herself from him
In fact, it was Holly who was at Phil’s side, holding his hand, when he came out in February 2020 live on This Morning
One may wonder if Phil’s comment that he only wants to be around friends he trusts is a dig at his former sidekick Holly.
Once the golden couple of daytime telly, for years they were inseparable off screen, too.
Holly, 45, was at Phil’s side, holding his hand, when he came out in February 2020 live on This Morning.
So close were the duo, and their families, that they bought neighbouring villas in a plush resort in Portugal, where they would soak up the sun together for weeks on end.
He was furious at her decision to distance herself from him, adamant that he was the kingmaker behind her glittering broadcasting career. I hear Schofield has been out to his holiday home recently, insistent that he will not sell it.
But keen to avoid Holly, he only goes during the school term time when it’s impossible for the mother of three to be there.
I’m also told that both prefer not to utter one another’s names either in private or public.
‘It runs that deep,’ says a source. ‘It got really, really toxic in the end, actually for a long time things hadn’t been that great between them but they had to hold it together for This Morning. Despite what happened, in front of the camera they were pros.’
Their families appear to have taken sides, too. Holly’s husband for almost 19 years, television production guru Dan Baldwin, is said to despise Schofield.
In turn, Schofield’s loyal daughters – Molly, 32, and Ruby, 30, once so close to Holly that they would have ‘girls’ nights’ in Portugal – think ‘very little’ of her today, say sources. ‘Three years is a long time in showbiz: once it was BBQs and bike rides, today there is no contact,’ says an associate of both.
‘Phil feels totally let down by Holly,’ adds my source. ‘He believes she threw him under the bus when he really needed her.
‘Holly was devastated that Phil lied to her over his affair. Friends of hers also believe that Phil wasn’t always as nice to her as the viewers would see.
‘There was a lot of jealousy on his part and he became very good at making Holly feel bad about her success. She’s free from that now, her life has changed so much, too.
‘When you look back at how close they were it is sad but it became an impossible situation and for Holly, it has been very freeing.’
Phil and Holly’s relationship got ‘really, really toxic in the end’, a source tells our columnist. Phil feels that ‘she threw him under the bus when he really needed her’
Holly, who has also stepped back from the limelight, is said to be planning grand comeback. (pictured before the King’s Trust 50th anniversary garden party at Buckingham Palace)
Holly, meanwhile, also stepped back from the limelight after she too quit This Morning, five months after Phil in October 2023.
Her decision was largely in response to an extraordinary plot to kidnap, rape and murder her.
In June 2024, former security guard Gavin Plumb was jailed for life after he was found guilty on all three counts. In the months between learning of his evil plan and his conviction, Holly barely left her home and was terrified of making a return to live television.
Apart from hosting a series of Dancing On Ice and fronting the Netflix reality show Celebrity Bear Hunt with Bear Grylls, she too has been enjoying a long stint largely out of the limelight. Friends say she has embraced a quieter life away from public scrutiny. I’m told that she has been busy renovating her dream home after she and Baldwin decided they wanted to leave their stunning property in Barnes, south-west London, in the aftermath of Plumb’s plot.
She is also enjoying doing the school run and ferrying her sons to their football training sessions.
‘For 14 years, Holly had been up at the crack of dawn for This Morning, then there would be meetings and in the winter Sundays were out for family stuff because of Dancing On Ice.
‘ITV wanted as much of her as they could get. Now she has time to do normal things. It was an adjustment for the kids.’
But as Phil accepts he has no future in television, Holly appears to be planning a grand comeback to the screen.
Earlier this week she attended the King’s Trust 50th anniversary garden party at Buckingham Palace, hosted by King Charles, looking summery in a pale pink dress, and she hosted another anniversary event in March.
Later this year, she will unveil her very own project, this time hosting a daytime programme, which would be available online, which she has been developing for her husband’s Hungry Bear Media production firm.
While she is yet to finalise details, it will be a magazine-type show which she will host alone. Sources tell me it will have similar content to This Morning, with guests and lifestyle features.
‘Holly has had some time on her hands to work out what she really wants,’ says a friend of the star.
‘This time, in many ways, has been a blessing for her. For years she was on a treadmill with ITV and when This Morning came to an end there was some sadness from her that she would never get to host a daytime show like that again – she knew there would be no opportunity on terrestrial television for that.
‘So she has gone off and is making her own. Terrestrial television is dying and she is now loving being at the forefront of her own project. It’s so, so exciting.’
Friends say that Phil finally feels he can finally be himself, often spending time in hangouts near Waterloo where he’s built up a loyal group of friends.
It’s all very different to Phil’s situation. For a long time after his disgrace, he retreated from the spotlight and wasn’t seen in public. There was a brief return to social media in 2024 but Phil decided against turning himself into an influencer, I’m told.
The chances of a TV comeback were always slim and his appearance in September 2024 on Channel 5 show, Cast Away, in which he spent ten days marooned on a desert island, didn’t help mend his fractured image.
During his stint on the show, he ranted about how he had been betrayed, in particular lambasting ITV chiefs for his downfall, calling them the ‘three sh*** of showbiz’.
ITV supremo Kevin Lygo has vowed never to have him on his channel again.
Phil remains close to his ex-wife, and she still lives in their former family home in Henley-on-Thames where he is a regular visitor. As for the friends Phil does trust, he still counts the likes of Declan Donnelly and Vanessa Feltz among his closest confidantes.
But there are no more glitzy awards ceremonies or celebrity parties – just quiet meals at local restaurants with his daughters and the odd raucous night out at London’s gay bars.
Friends say that he spends time in hangouts near Waterloo station where he has built up a loyal group of pals within the gay community.
‘He can be himself,’ says one source. ‘He had to live a lie for so many years, now he’s out and he’s having a great time.’
So it seems that the former colleagues – and once inseparable friends – have both moved into a more settled new phase. As one former associate, who watched the behind-the-scenes warring for months, tells me: ‘Who would have thought that three years on both Holly and Phil would be happy with the way things have turned out?’
Nevertheless, those who worked closely with Phil suggest that he does still miss his old life, where he ruled over This Morning with an iron fist.
‘Phil got what Phil wanted,’ a staff member tells me. ‘If he didn’t want someone involved in This Morning, they’d be binned. He loved the power.’
Whether Phil is truly so happy about the current status quo may be a more complex question than he insists.
