Former broadcaster Phillip Schofield has claimed that the backlash he faced for having an affair with a younger colleague was worse than it would have been for his straight peers.
The former This Morning co-host left ITV 16 months ago, after he admitted having an affair with a younger male colleague, while married to Stephanie Lowe, with whom he has two children.
Schofield, who called the affair “unwise but not illegal” and reportedly helped get the younger man work at ITV, recently made his return to TV in three-part Channel 5 documentary Cast Away, in which he was stranded on a desert island with no cast or crew.
Speaking during the second episode, Schofield accused the television industry of double standards when it came to his affair and the age gap between him and the other man.
“People say: ‘Ah, the publicity machine [is] back in full swing. He’s working his way back in,” Schofield told the camera. “‘Shamed, disgraced Phillip Schofield, who had an affair’.
“Strangely, I think another TV presenter or two might have done exactly the same thing. Difference is, [they’re] heterosexual.”
Phillip Schofield, who came out as gay in 2020, went on to claim that relationships with larger age gaps are “not an unusual thing in the gay world”, adding: “That’s not an unusual thing in the straight world. But if that had been the case with me, and it had been a woman: pat on the back, ‘Well done, mate’.”
The star’s lawyers confirmed to the Evening Standard that the boy was just 15 when the pair met but reiterated that the relationship didn’t begin until years later. Schofield resigned as soon as news of the affair broke.
During the new show, he admitted that he didn’t want to return to daytime television. “I love telly. I’ve got telly in my bones. But I won’t sit on a sofa again… I’ve been hurt so badly by that sort of telly and by some of the people in that sort of telly,” he said.
“You get to the point where you think: I don’t want to do it any more.”
Cast Away concludes at 9pm on Channel 5 on Wednesday (2 October).
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