{"id":675059,"date":"2026-05-16T16:42:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-16T16:42:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/675059\/"},"modified":"2026-05-16T16:42:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-16T16:42:13","slug":"what-phillip-schofield-thinks-of-holly-willoughby-as-he-opens-up-after-scandal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/675059\/","title":{"rendered":"What Phillip Schofield thinks of Holly Willoughby as he opens up after scandal"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nearly three years ago, on Saturday 20 May 2023, Phillip Schofield announced he was stepping down from This Morning \u2018with immediate effect\u2019.<\/p>\n

The presenter had spent more than 20 years with the ITV<\/a> programme, with 14 of those years spent with Holly Willoughby<\/a> at his side on the sofa – who of course famously asked us all if we ‘are OK’ afterwards.<\/p>\n

Schofield<\/a>‘s resignation came after he admitted to an \u2018unwise but not illegal\u2019 affair with a much younger male colleague on This Morning.<\/a><\/p>\n

His life changed pretty much overnight; dropped by his talent agency after decades, his separation from wife Stephanie formalised in divorce and doubt cast over his future in TV<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And as he retreated from the spotlight, it appeared and was rumoured that his long friendship with Willoughby also came to an end.<\/p>\n

While he is rarely seen of or heard from now, Schofield has spoken out about the \u2018brutal\u2019 recent years.<\/p>\n

\"HollyHolly and Phil were once best mates, but now reportedly avoid going to their neighbouring Portugal villas at the same time. (ITV)<\/p>\n

\u201cLife is really calm and drama free now,\u201d he told the Daily Mail<\/a> over email.<\/p>\n

The 64-year-old explained he made the decision a while ago that he just wants a \u2018quiet life\u2019 with people he can trust and his dog.<\/p>\n

\u201cTherefore I keep my head down as much as possible,\u201d he continued. \u201cThe past few years were, as you know, utterly brutal on so many levels and I came to terms with the fact that there was no way back.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve got used to my new life and I\u2019m content with that and happy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Willoughby and Schofield were once extremely close and the details of what happened between them after the scandal have never been totally clear.<\/p>\n

He confirmed that she \u2018did not know\u2019 about his affair and he had lied to his colleagues.<\/p>\n

And now a source tells Daily Mail<\/a> that the pair won\u2019t even say the other\u2019s name.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt runs that deep,\u201d the source claimed. \u201cIt got really, really toxic in the end, actually for a long time things hadn\u2019t been that great between them but they had to hold it together for This Morning. Despite what happened, in front of the camera they were pros.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"SchofieldSchofield now lives a ‘quiet life’ with just ‘family, friends I can trust and my dog’. (BBC)<\/p>\n

They also claimed that: \u201cPhil feels totally let down by Holly. He believes she threw him under the bus when he really needed her.<\/p>\n

\u201cHolly was devastated that Phil lied to her over his affair. Friends of hers also believe that Phil wasn\u2019t always as nice to her as the viewers would see.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a lot of jealousy on his part and he became very good at making Holly feel bad about her success. She\u2019s free from that now, her life has changed so much, too.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you look back at how close they were it is sad but it became an impossible situation and for Holly, it has been very freeing.\u201d<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for Schofield told LADbible this morning (16 May): “There was NEVER any jealousy on Phillip\u2019s part over H\u2019s success\u2026 He fought for her to get the job!”<\/p>\n

Following the admission of the affair, Schofield told the BBC<\/a> it was a \u2018grave error\u2019 and he was \u2018desperately sorry\u2019.<\/p>\n

He added that he doubted he would return to a career in TV which \u2018breaks my heart\u2019 as he said: \u201cI have lost everything.\u201d<\/p>\n

Schofield said: \u201cI fully appreciate there is a massive age gap, but that happens in life. I think there is an enormous amount of homophobia that it happens to be male, but if it was male-female then it wouldn’t be such a scandal.\u201d<\/p>\n

LADbible has contacted representatives for Willoughby for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nearly three years ago, on Saturday 20 May 2023, Phillip Schofield announced he was stepping down from This…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":675060,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[64,63,480,134,238259,238260,31007,427],"class_list":["post-675059","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-celebrity","tag-entertainment","tag-holly-willoughby","tag-phillip-schofield","tag-this-morning","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675059","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=675059"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675059\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/675060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=675059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=675059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=675059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}