Phillip Schofield and his much younger ex-lover steal a glance at each other while on stage

This is when Phillip Schofield’s younger lover appears next to the star on stage at the National Television Awards.

Pictured is the young runner sharing a look with Schofield as the show won an award at the annual ceremony in 2018.

That is what a former employee of This Morning told us the sun it was ‘strange’ to have such a young employee on stage to collect an award.

While Holly Willoughby, 42, held the trophy and gave her speech, Phillip, 61, can be seen looking back at his lover.

Schofield has since admitted that he developed a relationship with the young man while married to his wife Stephanie Lowe.

That’s what a former ITV production member told Daytime The sun: ‘He was on stage at the NTAs. Usually that’s something only the presenters and most executives can do.

Most of the crew members are in the back of the arena or even watching the ceremony in another bar. It was all very strange.’

It comes as This Morning fans noticed that Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby were missing from the ITV daytime show’s social media pages.

On Twitter, This Morning previously had a banner image at the top of the page featuring Schofield and Willoughby and Friday’s presenters Alison Hammond And Dermot O’Leary.

But now the page displays a generic background image that matches This Morning’s profile picture in turquoise and gold.

None of the presenters feature on the current banner, adding to previous speculation about who will present This Morning in the future.

Yesterday, former This Morning star Dr. Ranj the ‘toxic’ culture on the ITV daytime show.

The TV doctor, who left the show last year, claimed he was ‘taken out’ after taking his concerns to ‘the top’ of ITV, raising further questions for bosses about whether they knew and when.

Dr. Ranj – who is now the resident doctor on the BBC’s Morning Live – said he had thought ‘long and hard’ before addressing the scandal currently engulfing ITV, but decided to speak out ‘in light of recent events’.

But the channel has denied its bombshell allegations as calls for an independent inquiry into a 2020 top ITV buyer’s inquiry into Phillip Schofield’s affair with his secret lover grew.

ITV confirmed they had investigated rumors about the relationship, which first started circulating in 2020, but that Schofield and the young man had “repeatedly denied” the affair. But the call for an inquiry into ITV’s investigation into the relationship continues to grow.

On Saturday, broadcaster Dan Wooton revealed he had told ITV about Phillip Schofield’s affair with his young colleague in 2019 and urged them to investigate, but they dismissed it as ‘malicious gossip’.

In his exclusive Mail article, Wooton also revealed that ITV staff had made complaints about Schofield’s behaviour.

Kevin Lygo, director of television at ITV, denied yesterday that any mistakes were made in the network’s investigation.

When asked if there were any mistakes he faced, he simply replied ‘no’ sky news about which bosses knew what at ITV.

The scandal over the affair follows a turbulent few months for Schofield, who was ITV’s king of daytime television for decades.

But nine days ago he sensationally quit This Morning after 21 after falling out with Mrs Willoughby, 42. His departure came just a day after his younger brother Timothy was sentenced to 12 years in prison on 11 convictions for sex crimes involving a child used to be.

Schofield was forced to confirm that the allegations of an affair were true because his former lover – who had also worked on This Morning – unexpectedly confessed everything to his lawyers.

The presenter had hired top law firm Mishcon de Reya to represent the young man, now in his mid-twenties, presumably in the belief that he would keep his mouth shut.

But his former lover told lawyers that while he feared disclosure, he was tired of lying about the relationship.

Although ITV investigated Schofield’s affair in 2020, a senior lawyer has said there should be an ‘inquiry’ into the affair due to possible ‘abuse of power’.