‘I love Phillip Schofield but what he’s done is wrong’: Alison Hammond breaks down in tears on This Morning after ‘painful’ Phil interview as she and Dermot are forced to address ‘difficult story’ again
Alison Hammond broke down in tears on This Morning today as she said it was ‘really painful’ to watch Phillip Schofield being interviewed about his affair.
She said: ‘I was finding it really painful (to watch his BBC chat) because obviously, you know, I loved Phillip Schofield and it’s weird because I still love Phillip Schofield.
‘However what he’s done is wrong, he’s admitted it, he’s said sorry. But as a family we’re all really struggling to process everything. I never know what to say. But I remember what my mum used to say.
‘My mum always said ‘Use your Bible as a sat nav in life, Al.’ And in the Bible it says he without sin, cast the first stone. And I just don’t want to, I don’t want to say anything bad because obviously I’m in conflict, that’s how I feel.’
Her co-host Dermot O’Leary also told the programme: ‘This has been very difficult for us to cover this story as a friend and a colleague.’
Alison Hammond breaks down in tears on This Morning as she talks about Phillip Schofield
Alison Hammond and Dermot O’Leary spoke about Schofield on ITV’s This Morning today
Schofield said in his interview with the BBC that he has ‘lost everything’ in the wake of his affair with a younger male colleague and told of a ‘catastrophic effect’ on his mind.
READ MORE Phillip Schofield says he ‘wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for my daughters’
The former This Morning presenter, 61, said the fallout from the revelations had been ‘relentless’ and urged the media to leave his former lover ‘alone now’.
Speaking to the BBC’s Amol Rajan, he told of the criticism he has faced since admitting to the affair, saying: ‘Do you want me to die? Because that’s where I am.’
He said he saw ‘nothing ahead’ of him and he had to talk about his career in television ‘in the past tense’.
He said: ‘It is relentless, and it is day after day, after day after day.
‘If you don’t think that that is going to have the most catastrophic effect on someone’s mind – do you want me to die? Because that’s where I am.
‘I have lost everything.’
Referring to the Love Island host who took her own life in February 2020, he added: ‘I think I understand how Caroline Flack felt.’
TV presenter Phillip Schofield speaks to the BBC’s media editor Amol Rajan about his affair
Schofield resigned from ITV last week and was dropped by his talent agency YMU after admitting to the ‘unwise but not illegal’ relationship.
Timeline: From Phillip Schofield coming out as gay to resigning from This Morning
Phillip Schofield’s fall from grace has been swift. The veteran TV star, who has admitted to an affair with a much younger male colleague while still married to his wife, has lost his high-profile job on This Morning, his lucrative contract with ITV and his talent representation. This is a timeline of how events unfolded:
February 2020: Schofield comes out as gay after nearly 27 years of marriage to wife Stephanie in an emotional on-air chat with co-host and long-time friend Holly Willoughby. The pair embrace on the sofa.
September 2022: The co-hosts face criticism over claims they skipped the queue for the Queen’s Lying-in-State while attending as members of the media to film a segment for This Morning.
April 17, 2023: The first hint that something might be wrong comes in the first show after the Easter break. They should have both been on the sofa after Schofield took leave while his brother Timothy was on trial for child sex offences. While Schofield is back in the studio, Ms Willoughby is absent, saying she has shingles.
May 10: There are reports the pair are ‘barely speaking’.
May 11: Schofield calls Holly ‘his rock’ and says they are ‘the best of friends’.
May 15: The pair put on a united front on This Morning and make no reference to stories about their relationship.
May 18: Schofield presents what will turn out to be his last episode of This Morning.
May 20: Schofield steps down from This Morning with immediate effect. ITV says he will continue to present ‘peak time shows’, including the British Soap Awards and a new prime-time series. Ms Willoughby releases a statement saying the This Morning sofa ‘won’t feel the same without him’.
May 21: It is announced that Dermot O’Leary and Alison Hammond will host the show on Monday, May 22, as Ms Willoughby takes early half-term leave. It is announced she will return to hosting duties on June 5.
May 22: O’Leary and Hammond host the show and hail Schofield as ‘one of the best live television broadcasters this country has ever had’.
May 26: Schofield admits to an ‘unwise but not illegal’ affair with a much younger male colleague and resigns from ITV. He confirms that the relationship began while he was still with his wife and says he will not be hosting the British Soap Awards. He apologises for lying about the relationship. He is dropped by his talent agency YMU.
May 27: Ms Willoughby accuses Schofield of lying to her about the affair, saying his admission was ‘very hurtful’. ITV says the broadcaster was ‘not provided with, and did not find, any evidence of a relationship beyond hearsay and rumour’ when it looked into the matter in 2020.
May 28: Former This Morning resident doctor Dr Ranj Singh says the show is ‘toxic’, adding he raised concerns about ‘bullying and discrimination’ two years ago when he worked there and afterwards felt like he was ‘managed out’ for whistleblowing. ITV responds by saying an external and independent adviser was appointed to carry out a review after the complaint, which found ‘no evidence of bullying or discrimination’.
May 29: Schofield releases a statement denying ‘toxicity’ at This Morning and says ‘it’s the same handful of people with a grudge against me or the show who seem to have the loudest voice’. Former This Morning presenter Eamonn Holmes alleges there was a ‘total cover-up’ at ITV over the affair and says Ms Willoughby should follow Schofield ‘out the door’.
May 31: ITV’s chief executive Dame Carolyn McCall says that the broadcaster has instructed a barrister to conduct an external review of how it handled Schofield’s affair. She adds that Jane Mulcahy KC, of Blackstone Chambers, will ‘carry out an external review to establish the facts’.
June 1: Dame Carolyn has been called to give evidence to a parliamentary committee on June 14 to answer questions about the broadcaster’s approach to safeguarding and complaint handling following the departure of Schofield.
In his first interviews since leaving the broadcaster and This Morning, he said he was ‘utterly broken and ashamed’ but denied claims he had ‘groomed’ the man.
In the BBC interview Schofield praised his daughters Ruby and Molly for ‘guarding him’, telling Rajan: ‘Last week, if my daughters hadn’t been there then I wouldn’t be here. And they’ve guarded me and won’t let me out of their sight, it’s like a weird numbness.
‘I know that’s a selfish point of view. But you come to a point where you just think, how much are you supposed to take? If all of those people that write all that stuff, do they ever think that there’s actually a person at the other end?’
Asked by Rajan, the BBC’s media editor, if he was strong enough to do the interview, Schofield replied: ‘I have to.’
When pressed as to why, Schofield said in reference to his former colleague: ‘Because there is an innocent person here who didn’t do anything wrong, who is vulnerable and probably feels like I do.
‘And I just have to say stop with him, ok with me, but stop with him. Leave him alone now.’
Schofield told the BBC that the first time he had any ‘kind of sexual contact’ with his former This Morning colleague, the younger man was 20.
He said the pair had last spoken when Schofield ‘engaged a lawyer for him’, adding: ‘He needed independent support. So that was the last time.’
Recounting the first time they met, he said: ‘I was invited by a friend of mine to go to open a drama school. But whether it was immediately or sometime after, he said, ‘will you follow him on Twitter, because he’s a fan’. So I said, ‘yeah, sure, no problem’, which I did.’
Rajan added: ‘And he was what, 15 at the time?’
Schofield said: ‘I follow 11,300 people, and in all the time I’ve been on Twitter, there has never been any whiff of impropriety.’
He told Rajan the man was 19 when he had first expressed interest in a television career, and when asked by Rajan if, looking back on their messages, there was ‘any sense in which you were flirting with him?’, Schofield said: ‘No, I’ve been 41 years in television. Nothing like this before. No accusations. I mean, this is all accusations.’
During the interview, Schofield also spoke about his friend and This Morning co-presenter Holly Willoughby, with reports in the weeks prior to him stepping down saying the pair had drifted apart.
Asked who on the team knew about the relationship, Schofield said: ‘To my knowledge, I mean, somebody has to know something for there to be a rumour later on. I didn’t believe that anybody knew.’
He said he had not told Willoughby of the relationship, saying: ‘No, God, no. That’s a bigger question. Because we have, our make-up room was like a sanctuary, has always been a sanctuary.
‘So you tell everything in that room. Holly knows everything about me. I know everything about Holly, Holly did not know. Nobody knew.’
The pair had presented This Morning together since 2009, with Willoughby due to return to the show on Monday after the half-term break, having taken an early holiday after news of Schofield’s departure emerged.
Alison Hammond and Dermot O’Leary have been among the presenters hosting the programme in recent weeks.
Schofield went on to say that his ‘greatest apology’ over the fallout from the affair was to his former lover and that he would ‘die sorry’ for what he had done.
In a sign he believes his television career is over, he told Rajan: ‘I see nothing ahead of me but blackness and sadness and regret and remorse and guilt.’
He said: ‘I’m not in television any more, I don’t know what I am even remotely – if I get through this.
‘I don’t know even remotely how I move forward – what am I going to do with my days?’
He went on: ‘I did something very wrong and then I lied about it consistently and you can’t live with that. How do you live with that?’
Schofield added being dropped as an ambassador by the Prince’s Trust charity ‘broke my heart’.
‘I can’t remember how long I’ve been there,’ he told the BBC.
It comes after ITV boss Dame Carolyn McCall was called to a parliamentary committee on June 14 to answer questions about the broadcaster’s approach to safeguarding and complaint handling following Schofield’s exit.
In a letter seen by the PA news agency on Wednesday, the chief executive revealed the broadcaster had instructed barrister Jane Mulcahy KC of Blackstone Chambers, to carry out an external review of the facts.
It also said the broadcaster had ‘reviewed’ its records and said ‘when rumours of a relationship’ between Schofield and an employee of ITV emerged, they ‘both categorically and repeatedly denied the rumours’.
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