Phillip Schofield reveals how his affair with This Morning runner began with dressing room kiss

Phillip Schofield has revealed that his affair with a young studio runner began with a kiss in a dressing room prior to ‘five or six’ sexual encounters.

The former This Morning presenter, 61, said the meeting took place at the ITV studios when the man was 20.

Asked directly by the BBC’s Amol Rajan if he had any kind of sexual relationship when his former lover was a minor, he said: “God no. My statement says ‘consensual relationship, totally legal’, I mean that [the statement] was approved by both parties.’

Schofield recalled how the affair started, saying, “He had been working on the show for a few months and we became buddies, we were buddies.”

“In the studios, we hung out together, chatted, things like that.

Directly asked by the BBC’s Amol Rajan if he had any sort of sexual relationship when his former lover (pictured) was a minor, he said: ‘God no’

“And then one day in my dressing room something happened that of course I will regret forever for him and for me – especially for him.

“That happened maybe four or five times over the next few months, and I know it’s inexcusable, but we weren’t boyfriends, we weren’t in a relationship.

“I was really confused with my sexuality at the time and it just happened.”

Schofield said he first started following his former lover on Twitter when he was 15 after a friend asked him to.

The broadcaster explained that he was invited by a friend to attend a school, something he says he has done “thousands of times”.

He claimed he was later asked to follow back ‘a fan’ on Twitter, who was 15 years old at the time – to which the presenter agreed.

Schofield recounted the first time they met, telling Rajan, “I was invited by a friend of mine to open a drama school…

“But whether it was right now or a while later,” he said, “will you follow him on Twitter, because he’s a fan.” So I said, ‘Yes, of course, no problem,’ which I did.”

Rajan added, “And what was he then, 15?”.

Schofield said, “I follow 11,300 people, and in all my time on Twitter, there’s never been a hint of inappropriateness.”

He went on to say that the pair had “barely” any contact, but the young man had later reached out to ask “if he could visit the studios, something like work experience.

BBC journalist Amol Rajan interviews Schofield

‘I said: come and see what he did.’

Schofield told Rajan that the man was 19 when he first expressed interest in a television career, and when asked by Rajan, looking back at their posts, did it “have any sense that you were flirting with him?” Schofield said : “No, it was work.”

He added: ‘I’ve been on television for 41 years. Nothing like this before. No accusations.’

He strongly denied that he had “groomed” his former lover or sent him sexual messages before the start of their relationship.

The presenter said he hadn’t fallen in love with the man and didn’t feel there was an imbalance of power because “we’d become buddies.”

Asked what the end of their relationship was, he said, “I started to get into a very bad mental state with my own sexuality at that point. And it just sort of drifted off. We stayed friends, we are still friends.

“And I got him work and running tracks on other shows I did because he was a really good runner and a buddy. It’s always nice to have a team around you that knows you.

Schofield said the last time he had contact with his former lover was “a few weeks” ago when he got him a lawyer because he needed “independent” support.

Schofield questioned a photograph showing him attending the young man’s drama school when he was a pupil and only 15 years old

He denied ever telling Holly Willoughby that he had had a sexual relationship with the young man,

Later in the interview, Schofield related how his two daughters Molly, 29, and Ruby, 27, had “watched over me and wouldn’t let me out of my sight,” adding that he had felt a “weird numbness.”

The broadcaster also said he had ‘lost everything’ in the wake of the revelations, admitting his ‘career was over’ and there had been a ‘catastrophic effect’ on his mind.

Schofield continued, “I did something very wrong and then I lied about it consistently and you can’t live with that. How do you live with that?’

The father-of-two was photographed yesterday being driven around London while sitting in the back seat of a car next to a woman believed to be his daughter Ruby.

Schofield’s other daughter, Molly, is said to still work for his former talent agency YMU.

MailOnline revealed yesterday that Molly only found out about his statement admitting to lying about his relationship minutes before the story came out.