Ten Phillip Schofield claims that insiders have a VERY different version of – and which might change your view of his Cast Away ‘pity party’: KATIE HIND

When Phillip Schofield flew to Madagascar to film his new television series, there can be no doubt that it was a bold attempt to rehabilitate himself – and that he saw the show as a platform to tell his side of his downfall.

More than a year after admitting he’d had an affair with a much younger colleague – before lying about it to ITV, his friends, his family and this newspaper – the three-part Channel 5 series Cast Away offered him a opportunity. to settle some scores.

After all, he had fallen out with his bosses at the network, his former This Morning bank sidekick and best friend Holly Willoughby, and his management team, YMU.

Yet his former colleagues are outraged by some of his on-screen claims and believe the programme, widely regarded as nothing more than a ‘pity party’ for the broadcaster, is inaccurate.

As they say, there are inconsistencies in how the 62-year-old Schofield presented his departure from the network last May.

An ITV insider tells me: ‘Phil has been given the chance to speak his truth, but it’s not the same as how other people remember things.’

From claiming he handed his pedophile brother over to the police to claiming he would never have been fired if he had been a straight man, there are no fewer than ten of Schofield’s claims that have led his former colleagues to insist the memories vary…

Claim 1 – He reported his pedophile brother

Schofield told viewers on Cast Away that he reported his pedophile brother Tim to the police after his sibling confessed to sexually assaulting a boy in 2021.

The star said on screen: ‘I had absolutely no qualms about buying it. We were praised by the police and justice was done.”

However, Schofield said in a statement to Exeter Crown Court, where his sibling was on trial: ‘I didn’t want to know the details but he made it sound like a one-off event. I said, ‘I don’t want you to tell me anything else.’ I said, ‘You have to stop, but don’t ever do it again.’

He later said on social media: “These are despicable crimes, and I welcome the guilty verdicts. As far as I’m concerned, I don’t have a brother anymore.’

Claim 2 – ITV fired him because of his brother

Schofield insists he was fired by ITV because of the bad publicity caused by his pedophile brother.

He said: ‘I was always open and honest with everyone at work about what happened to my brother. I was fired because of the bad publicity, because of someone else’s crime.”

Although I’m told Phillip told his ITV bosses about his brother’s upcoming trial and subsequently agreed to take time off from This Morning, they say he left the show following his feud with Holly Willoughby.

In a statement from the channel in May 2023, Schofield said: ‘I understand that ITV has decided that the current situation cannot continue, and I want to do what I can to protect the show I love.

‘So I have agreed to resign from This Morning with immediate effect.’

Statement 3 – I would never quit

“I’m fired, I’m not giving up – I’m fired, but I’m not giving up,” Schofield said on Cast Away. However, others at ITV remember his departure differently. After he resigned from This Morning, the broadcaster was still an ITV employee and would host the upcoming Soap Awards.

However, a fortnight later he told the Mail that he had quit ITV, saying: ‘I am painfully aware that I have lied to my employers at ITV, to my colleagues and friends, to my agents, to the media and therefore against the public and most people. the most important thing for my family.

‘I am very sorry, as am I, for being unfaithful to my wife. I have therefore decided to step down from the British Soap Awards, my last public engagement, and resign from ITV with immediate effect.”

Claim 4 – Holly threw me under a bus

Describing the end of his tenure at ITV, Schofield says he was ‘thrown under a bus’ by his colleagues. However, others say This Morning’s feud with Holly exploded when he made a public statement about their friendship without telling her.

In May 2023, Schofield said: ‘The last few weeks have not been easy for either of us. As I’ve said before, Holly is my rock.

‘We are the best of friends – as always she is an incredible support on screen, behind the scenes and on the phone. Holly has always been there for me, through thick and thin. And I’ve been there for her.’

Friends of Holly’s told me at the time that she was “blindsided” by his statement and that she had not been consulted about it beforehand.

Statement 5 – I would never sabotage a colleague

Schofield went on to say that he could “run over so many people with the same bus. But I’m not that kind of person. I never have been.”

As you can imagine, Britain’s Got Talent star Amanda Holden might disagree. She claims he ruined her chances of co-hosting This Morning with him, while Holly stepped in to present I’m A Celebrity after that show’s co-host Ant McPartlin took some time off.

Statement 6 – If I were straight, things would be different

ITV insiders have dismissed Schofield’s on-screen claim that if he was straight and in a relationship with a much younger woman he would never have gotten into trouble.

He said sadly of Cast Away: ‘Disgraced Phillip Schofield. Who had an affair. But strangely enough, I think a few more TV presenters had done exactly the same thing. The difference is heterosexual.

‘If that had been the case with me and it had been a woman. Pat on the back. Good job, buddy.’

ITV sources insist this would not be the case and are furious that he suggested this: ‘He lied about the affair and the outcome would have been the same regardless of his sexual orientation.’

Claim 7 – There was no toxicity this morning

Schofield slammed the idea that there was a toxic culture behind the scenes of This Morning, telling viewers this week: ‘The toxic thing, by the way, is complete nonsense created by newspapers. There is no toxicity. That wasn’t there when I was there.’

Following a DCMS committee hearing into the Schofield scandal, chairman Dame Caroline Dinenage said she had been contacted by a ‘large number of individuals’ after her appearance in parliament.

She revealed: ‘These people speak with great pride about working at ITV. However, they also make claims about toxic work cultures, bullying, discrimination and harassment.”

For their part, ITV say there was ‘no evidence of a toxic culture’ in their external review last year.

Statement 8 – I never wanted to be famous

As a television presenter who rose to fame as a children’s television presenter with the soft toy Gordon the Gopher, and then starred as Joseph in the West End version of Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat, Schofield never looked like a shrinking violet.

On the contrary, he enjoyed the spotlight from an early age. He even posed for his own calendars. However, on Cast Away he insists he “never wanted to be famous.”

Statement 9 – I don’t want all this attention right now

Schofield says he now wants a quiet life and turned to photographers.

He told Cast Away viewers: “If you get canceled, there’s nothing you can do. I’d take Alfie [his dog] taking a walk and daddying would be like a sniper – go away and let me get on with the quiet life you’ve given me.”

However, as a friend of the star notes, “He went out of his way to make Cast Away which he knew would attract a lot of attention.”

Claim 10 – The damn boss who got someone fired

Schofield took issue with an ITV boss he described as a ‘s***’, adding that they were a ‘coward for never stepping up when I was being abused by that one journalist who thought I had sacked them’ .

In fact, the broadcast journalist discussed wasn’t fired by ITV, but walked away from the show he was working on because they cut his hours in 2019.