Charlotte Griffith reported on Phillip Schofield’s apology to the Daily Mail for lying about his affair with a young colleague on gbnew tv
“on Main news today and have a guess it’s all over the papers again of course, but now it’s been revealed that the secret lover of Phillip Schofield was just 15 years old when they met at a theater school where the ITV presenter was giving a talk. Right meanwhile Holly Willoughby has said that the admission from Phillip Schofield of the relationship was very hurtful.
On top of all of this, an Insider is also suggesting in some of the papers this morning that this morning itself could be asked right. Well, joining us to unpick all of this, and there’s a lot of it, is Ezra at large of Mail on Sunday.
One of the papers has got it huge on page one today, uh, Charlotte Griffith daily mail editor.
Below is the interview conversations between daily mail editor Charlotte Griffith and GBNews TV presenters:
“Charlotte, I mean, the latest development, the front page of your paper today, Scofield love was just 15 when they met. Um, tell us more, what’s the background to this?”
“Gosh, well, we now know why when Phil issued his statement a few days ago, he said this relationship was ill-advised but not illegal. And for many of us, well, actually not me because I work with journalism, but for many people, it seemed like a bit of an odd statement. But now, what we know and has now been revealed, which is that they met when they were 15.
And what happened was a mutual friend of him and his wife encouraged him to go to a school in the Northwest, which I won’t say what its name is, and meet some students, which he did. And one of the students stayed in touch over a number of years, and nothing untoward happened.
But when he was old enough, he came in and did some work experience on ITV, and it’s then that their relationship appeared to have grown, with Phil in a sort of mentor role. And Phil has always maintained it was a mentor role, but now it seems that, in fact, a relationship eventually grew out of that mentorship.”
“And look, I mean, age is important in all of this. Do we know when that relationship, the s*xual relation started? Was he still a teenager?”
“Well, Phil’s saying it wasn’t illegal, so we have to guess that he was in his late teens when it developed. Well, I mean, could actually looking back, it could be anything over 16, couldn’t it? That’s to be legal. Nothing like that has been confirmed yet, so it’s kind of dangerous territory. But, you know, it’s unusual that they have this friendship, for sure.”
“And, Charlotte, are you surprised at how quickly the relationship between Holly and Phil has just disintegrated? I mean, you know, they went on a holiday together, they described one another as, you know, the rocks in each other’s lives. I mean, and yet now, if they, I think they wouldn’t say hello if they walk past each other on the street.”
“Yes, well, you know, Holly, saying she said last night she was very hurt because she approached Phil about these allegations, and he just denied them completely. And what happened was eventually the man, the young man in question, told lawyers that Phil had hired, so Phil hired this lawyer’s company called Mishcon de Reya and expected the boy, not to say anything, and he actually did confess everything. And so Holly has now said, ‘Look, I was lied to.
I asked Phil about this, and he lied to me.’ And this comes off the back of reports that Phil didn’t say that his brother was facing allegations of child abuse and didn’t warn Holly before all that came out a couple of weeks ago. So, it has been disastrous for their relationship because their trust between them is totally broken. Once the trust is gone, their rapport is gone, and the show disintegrates.”
“But what about trust with the viewers, the Great British viewer, in all of this? Because Holly’s saying she asked but was told no. Anyone vaguely in the business or anyone who decides to go on social media will have known about certainly very strong allegations about this relationship with accompanying pictures and videos and all the rest of it that have been online for more than three years.”
“Yes, there have been photos, and there are photos of Holly with the young man. They had a sort of altercation of some kind, according to some pictures. There were some pictures in 2020 that showed a fraught conversation between Holly and the young man. So, you’ve got to wonder whether she did think, ‘Gosh, this mentorship, this friendship is extremely close,’ and whether she asked him before. But according to her statement last night, she asked him once the allegations were reported, which is only a couple of days ago. So, you know, it’s.
You’d think she might have asked him in the last few years because there is a picture of Phil visiting the school that has been online, and they’re nowhere near each other in that photo, by the way. But it has been online for a couple of years, and there’s a picture of Holly and Phil and the young man in the studio in the ‘This Morning’ studio, which is online as well. But I think we’ve got to be very careful not to identify him because it sounds like… You know, Dan Whitton has said this, that his mental health was affected by this mentorship and friendship, which developed into a relationship.”
“Charlotte, one area a lot of people are confused about is there’s a lot of talk about, like, an injunction being taken out to keep the young man in question quiet, to buy his silence. Can you just clarify whether there is an injunction or is that just part of all the speculation that, as we’ve alluded to, is online?”
“I’m not aware of any injunction. Phil said there wasn’t an injunction, and indeed, the young man did speak to Mishcon and tell them that he’s sick of lying, he said was what he told the lawyers. And of course, now Phil’s admitted to it all.”
“So, do you think, just quickly, sorry, do you think that the young man in question potentially could come forward and tell his side of the story?”
“I think he could do, and I think Phil is well aware of that, and that’s why he’s been trying to get ahead of it. Although I think, you know, he’d say he’s trying to do right by the young man and protect his privacy. But I think the young man could, at any moment, come forward. I mean, the problem with all of this, and it’s looking at branding, not only for Mr. Schofield but also for ‘This Morning’ as a show, for ITV as a channel, is if any… I mean, are they living in dread as to whether any more comes out? I mean, yes, a statement from the young man involved could be damaging, but it’s whether there’s any more. That’s what the fear is.”
“Yeah, there could be more. I think it’s going to be a real turning point for ‘This Morning’ in the next few days. There’s talks that they might rebrand.
But it’ll be hard to see how they can continue going on every morning, launching the show, going on there, wondering while we’re on air, will something come out? Will there be another statement? Will something go on Twitter? Will the man reveal something on social media?
It’s going to be a really difficult time, and, yeah, as you say, it’s a clean morning, happy, upbeat show, and they don’t want to be tainted by this worry for weeks and weeks to come. So they might need to do some serious strategic planning to see how they’re going to progress, analyzing why people are saying what they’re saying and what they’re thinking, and trying to work out how awful it must be to sit there on that sofa, be happy and smiley. Oh, it’s extraordinary.”
“I’ll tell you what we’ve been talking about this morning. Katie Hind, a colleague of yours, obviously, who got this statement from Phillip Schofield, the fact that he has been in touch and not only admitted what he did but also apologized for lying to people and apologized to the Mail for lying to the Mail because they tried to block a story and what have you, hadn’t he?”
“Yes, that, in itself, seems unprecedented. It’s so unprecedented, and he wrote to Katie Hind and said, ‘I don’t expect any mercy,’ which is extraordinary. And it’s because actually Katie has been very brave and done a story a couple of weeks ago that sort of went quite far to hint at this friendship. And he sent a complaint to IPSO and said, ‘You know, the Mail has got this wrong,’ and of course, we hadn’t. So, he was right to apologize. But it’s not very often in Showbiz that people do a full mea culpa like that and say, ‘Show me any mercy.’ Never heard of it.”
“So, are we expecting more to come next week?”
“Well, you know, I do think there’s a little bit more to go. I think there might be some more stories around Holly. I think she’ll have her side to tell soon. You know, that Instagram post she put up last night, it does sort of beg a few more questions. There are a few more questions that people are going to want to ask her if she’s going to be able to continue taking that seat on ‘This Morning.’ So, she might need to answer a couple of them first. That’s my opinion.”
“Actually, on that issue, that’s going to be very difficult, isn’t it? For although a week ago, we were thinking, ‘Well, she’ll carry on, she’ll have a new co-host and all the rest of it.’ Whether she likes it or not, she’s been tainted by this, hasn’t she?”
“Yeah, I think whether she likes it or not is a good way of putting it because she’s tried very hard to distance herself. And, you know, she didn’t do this, she didn’t have this relationship.
At the moment, we’ve been told she was lied to, and she has had no idea all along. And she’s a much-loved member of ‘This Morning’ and has some very lucrative deals that she’ll be wanting to protect. It’s very tricky. I sort of think they will try to keep her going and keep her on the sofa with a new presenter. But she might need to answer a couple of questions, I’ll put it that way.”
“Okay, Charlotte, really good to see you this morning. Thank you very much indeed.”
