PLATELL’S PEOPLE: No, Phillip Schofield didn’t groom his lover – but he did groom his audience

Like many who watched Phillip Schofield’s excruciating TV interview, I was shocked but gripped when he laid bare his grief and offered his deepest apology to his young former lover (not his wife, tellingly) for the devastation he had in his life wrought.

Schofield was emphatic when Amol Rajan asked him the question: had he taken care of the young man? ‘No! God no!’ he cried.

And yet I believe Schofield is guilty of grooming. I am not saying he was grooming his former lover though Rajan was right to question him as he started following the man on Twitter when he was only 15.

No, the people I think he has looked after are his fans and those who know him. People he deceived universally.

Schofield tricked everyone into thinking there was nothing unpleasant about his star life, when in reality – to use his own words – he “did something very wrong and lied about it consistently.”

With smiles and platitudes, wit and frivolity, he convinced millions of us that he was either the cheeky dude or the serious journalist who could get us through our mornings from the TV screen and improve our day.

He was the same with friends, family and associates – all provided by his charm and twinkling personality. And all the while he hid his secret in plain sight.

I had the same experience with Rolf Harris. Now I am not for a moment suggesting that Schofield broke the law like Harris, which he clearly did not.

A relationship between two consenting adults of any sexuality is perfectly legal.

But throughout my long friendship with Harris, the Aussie doodle was always cheerful and full of charm.

He couldn’t care less about the way he presented himself to me – and again to his countless fans.

Yet he kept his secrets from me and for years I never suspected it.

What Schofield had in common with Harris was the ability to flatter and charm as he cheated on you.

How else could Schofield have kept his millions of This Morning fans for so long and portrayed himself as a happily married family man when in fact he was gay?

Schofield may not have been grooming his sweetheart, but he’s certainly been grooming his audience.

Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg posts a photo after two one-mile runs, 100 pull-ups, 200 push-ups and 300 squats in a 20-pound vest honoring 2,402 American heroes lost in Afghanistan.

He may be worth $96.8 billion, but he’s just a sad man trying to prove he’s a warrior.

Raise a glass of fizz for our Saint Kylie

Kylie’s has its first hit in nearly a decade, while its rosé prosecco is the UK’s best-selling.

What’s not to love about this eternally bubbly lady? Conspiracy theorists say she’s part of a satanic cult because she poses with the “evil eye” on her new album. What? Kylie is a saint, not a sinner!

Sources close to the Sussexes say they will stop destroying the royal family to focus on causes close to their hearts, such as his Invictus Games and her philanthropic work.

But what is close to Meg’s heart besides Meg? And how will they fund their lavish lifestyles if their only value lies in, er, trashing the royals?

Our £6 million daily help

Migrants from Somalia, Iran and Eritrea protest outside their three-star hotel in London, claiming the accommodation is ‘like a prison’.

They have taken to the curb with posters that read, ‘This is a prison, not a hotel. Help us.’

Given the £6 million a day we pay to house people who come here illegally, some might say we already are.

The Duchess of York says her apparent “loudness” is just compensation for her shyness.

As some may laugh, Fergie has never attacked the royals and she has stood by the disgraced Prince Andrew through thick and thin. And I’m not just talking about her yo-yo figure!

Belizean socialite Jasmine Hartin is fined £30,000 for shooting dead a police officer friend after a drink or two and ordered to “make a video about . . . drinking and making stupid decisions’.

Movies and a fine for shooting someone in the head? Seems like a letdown to me.

Al is selfish to become a father at 83

As Al Pacino announces that he will become a father again at age 83 with a woman 54 years younger, you wonder what it is that old men have children.

Does that make them feel immortal? After his father abandoned him at the age of two, Pacino vowed to always be there for his three now grown children.

But how much help will a selfish father who is almost 90 be when his child starts school?

Ad may crash

There’s a new TV commercial for an eco-friendly toilet roll made from 100 percent recycled bamboo called Who Gives AC**p.

It features huge underpants of massively obese women, in lycra, running away from the camera and running into a toilet.

Which makes you wonder how that will appeal to anyone – and who thought it was a good idea to come up with such a repulsive name?

Spoiler! After the final episode of Succession, Jeremy Strong reveals that when his character Kendall Roy was betrayed, the script had him sit on a park bench.

As a method actor, he believes that a Kendall, robbed of everything, would have jumped into the river.

I wish he had, so as not to avoid a spin-off. His gibberish was so inaudible I had to use the subtitles.

What’s in a name? Well, a fortune, if we learn that Freddie Mercury intended to call his epic not Bohemian but Mongolian Rhapsody.

It would have sunk like a brick. How poor would Don McLean be if he had sung Bye-bye Miss Canadian Pie or written Jimmy Webb, not MacArthur, but Central Park?

Westminster wars

Has Boris played a blinder by offering all his private WhatsApp messages and diaries unredacted to the Covid inquiry as the Prime Minister hesitates?

Could there be WhatsApp messages that could bring down Rishi? What poetic justice that would be. Rishi knifes Boris in the back and Boris stabs him back with a WhatsApp.

Bad timing for hard-working Interior Ministry officials threatening strikes to overturn the deal with Rwanda because it hurts their feelings.

The week they issued their threat, experts warned that AI robots could take over even medium-skilled jobs, such as processing a single illegal immigrant in less than 18 months. And robots wouldn’t be WFH.

Kate rarely gets a fashionable stiletto wrong, but wasn’t her wafty blush-pink lace dress at the wedding of Crown Prince Hussein of Jordan a little bride-bridey, even a little upstaging?

And why all the effort, considering that for Meghan’s 2018 wedding, she donned a three-year-old yellow Alexander McQueen gown that she’d worn several times before?