Former This Morning presenter Phillip Schofield’s friends rally around the star, revealing his true feelings towards Holly Willoughby, ITV and his former agents YMU, with one pal saying: “Enough is enough”
Phillip Schofield accused Holly Willoughby of not coming to his aid as his career crashed, telling her: “You brought me down.”
The star dramatically blasted Holly via WhatsApp the day before news of his This Morning axe became public.
A pal said: “As well as saying she had brought him down, he said he couldn’t believe his TV sister would do this to him.”
Schofield blamed her for not publicly backing him amid reports they had fallen out in the aftermath of his brother’s court case, in May, 2023.
He asked her for a public show of support such as a statement or picture of them together in the hope it would diffuse media claims of a fallout between the showbiz pair. But his plea was ignored.
The friend claimed this lack of support meant that his future on the sofa was doomed as viewers no longer believed in their on-screen chemistry.
“He feels it was a simple gesture that might have saved his job and her refusal to do so effectively finished him off. Believing in the TV chemistry was the bedrock of the This Morning format,” a pal said.
She reportedly told Schofield that she didn’t want to “feed the narrative” and that ITV bosses didn’t want her to publicly respond.
Phillip Schofield accused Holly Willoughby of not coming to his aid as his career crashed, telling her: “You brought me down” (
Image:
Dave J. Hogan/Getty Images)
After he sent her the WhatsApp, Holly is said to have replied that she was in the dark about what was going on, the pal said.
But Schofield was so upset that he later messaged two senior ITV bosses to complain about her, the friend says.
The presenter said he felt as if Holly and a This Morning boss had staged a “very well constructed coup” as his TV career imploded.
A source said: “Phillip considered her a friend, his TV sister as he called her, and always backed her, even recommending her to do the jungle. Her lack of public support was a low blow in his eyes.”
Schofield and his management were also deeply suspicious of her PR team and angry that they weren’t correcting “false narratives running riot.”
This included the claims widely reported at the time that Holly was kept in the dark about Schofield’s brother’s court case.
Phillip Schofield & Holly Willoughby timeline
How TV’s favourite couple fell out with each other.
2022
September: Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield come under fire after being accused of jumping the queue for the Queen’s lying-in-state.
2023
April 3: The brother of television presenter Phillip Schofield is found guilty of sexually abusing a boy.
May 10: Reports emerge that Schofield and Holly are “barely speaking”.
May 11: Schofield releases a statement calling Holly his “rock” while admitting that the past few weeks “haven’t been easy for us.”
May 12: Schofield requests that Holly releases a statement or a pic of them together to support him but his plea is ignored
May 19: Schofield messages Holly saying that he can’t believe his TV sister would bring him down
May 20: Schofield announces that he is stepping down from This Morning with “immediate effect” after more than 20 years on the ITV programme.
May 26: Schofield quits ITV after admitting he had an affair with a runner and lied to cover it up.
June: ITV launch an independent KC-led investigation into the runner scandal
December: ITV review comes back saying they couldn’t find out about the truth because of “denials” of those involved
But the pal says that Holly was in fact informed by Schofield a month after his brother’s arrest in 2021. Schofield even told Holly how the police were very kind when he had spoken to them, and praised how she was “really supportive of what he was going through.”
His 54-year-old brother was convicted of 11 sexual offences involving a child between October 2016 and October 2019, including two of sexual activity with a child.
The pal said: “There is a narrative – uncorrected by Holly’s team – that she was blindsided by news of his brother’s court case and was furious with him for keeping her in the dark about it.
Phil was left upset by his colleague Holly not backing him with a public statement (
Image:
Getty Images)
“But that narrative couldn’t be further from the truth.” Holly’s reps also stayed silent on reports that she refused to do the show alongside him.
Schofield said in May 2023 how he had “agreed to step down ” from the show after more than 20 years in order to “protect the show that I love.”
A friend said: “In reality he was forced out…and was absolutely devastated by what happened.” During all of this Schofield was fielding increasing questions about his relationship with a runner, and denying that anything had happened between them.
Days after being forced off the show, he admitted lying about the affair which led to his resignation from ITV, blowing up his career.
He admitted at the time: “I did have a consensual on-off relationship with a younger male colleague at This Morning….that relationship was unwise but not illegal. It is now over.”
The pal said: “He blew things up himself but at the end of the day he promised the other person involved that he wouldn’t say anything in order to keep his name out of the papers, which is what they wanted.
“The suggestion by ITV that the lying ultimately got him sacked is disingenuous. He was very much forced out at This Morning. This was not a voluntary stepping down, and he made his feelings clear.”
Schofield was also ditched by his agency of 35 years, YMU, on the same day he admitted to having an extra-marital affair. YMU said at the time how “honesty and integrity” were “core values”, and that that “talent management is a relationship based entirely on trust.”
But the pal said the decision to dump him and his “support network of 35 years” was brutal. “YMU insisted that he deliver a full mea culpa with the line that he would never work in TV again, which Phil eventually took out. He didn’t write the statement instead, and afterwards no-one was allowed to talk to him. He felt utterly rudderless.”
He later refused to speak to an independent review into the affair, carried out by Jane Mulcahy KC, because of “the risk to his health”.
Last week he appeared on Channel 5 show Castaway to “set the record straight on a few things,” the pal says. He told on air how the building “became hostile to me” and appeared to take a well-aimed dig at colleagues from This Morning.
“And the people who did it to me, know, they know how important that building was to me. They know that when you throw someone under a bus, you’ve got to have a really bloody good reason to do it. Brand, ambition is not good enough. It’s not a good enough reason to throw someone under a bus.”
Cracks in his and Holly’s relationship began in 2022 when the pair were accused of jumping the line to pay their respects to the late Queen in Westminster Hall, which was known as “queuegate”.
The pal said that Schofield aired concerns at the time about airing the segment saying that the move would open them up to criticism.
“He made it quite clear in no uncertain terms that it was a bad idea and would be interpreted the wrong way,” they said.
The pal defended Schofield for now going on national TV and airing his grievances, saying he was well within his rights to do so.
“So much Phillip needed to get off his chest on Cast Away appears to be justified and was not the ‘poor me’ it was accused of,” the friend says.
“He couldn’t have been more remorseful of his mistake and addressed that numerous times, but did he deserve that trip under the bus?
“He has been pleased by the reaction and just wants people to make their own minds up by watching all three episodes.”
