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Disgraced British TV presenter Phillip Schofield has spent another week in the headlines, following his departure from ITV’s flagship daytime show This Morning and his admission that he had a secret relationship with a runner on the show 40 years his junior.
He’ll be relieved to read the words of fellow presenter Jeremy Clarkson, who has written in defence of the fallen star in this week’s Sunday Times.
Clarkson, who has endured his own share of bad headlines and in XX departed from hit BBC motoring show Top Gear after a physical altercation with a producer, wrote:
“We casually roll our eyes when we hear that Leonardo DiCaprio’s new girlfriend is three and we even nod appreciatively when we learn that the age gap between Al Pacino and his pregnant girlfriend is 54 years. Which means that when he was starring as an old man in Scent of a Woman, she wasn’t even an embryo.
“But Phil and his toy boy? Noooo. That’s totally unacceptable…
“I’ve never seen a witch-hunt like it, and what baffles me most of all is that, as things stand, no crime has been committed. I don’t know him at all well and have no skin in the game, but it seems to me he is only guilty of being what he said he was: gay.”
Meanwhile, the story continues with this week’s developments including:
Schofield giving interviews to the BBC and to The Sun newspaper, in which reiterated that he had done nothing illegal, but that he believed his TV career was finished
ITV boss Dame Carolyn McCall announced that she had an instructed an independent barrister to conduct a review into the goings-on behind the scenes of This Morning, amid claims of toxicity and senior figures conspiring to keep Schofield’s affair secret;
Confirmation that ITV bosses will appear before Parliament this Wednesday to answer questions;
Reports in the weekend’s press that Schofield’s co-host Holly Willoughby will return to the show on Monday morning, following a fortnight break, and will directly address the scandal, in an attempt to restore trust with the viewers.
