‘What folks do not realise is that they batter you however then there are different folks affected’, Phillip Schofield’s ever-loyal spouse informed him earlier than he went to a desert island this summer time.
Mrs Schofield, 59, has been unerringly supportive of her husband in a rare and difficult decade that started with him popping out as homosexual after which dropping his job on This Morning over an affair with a younger producer final yr.
Gone is his £2 million-a-year ‘golden handcuffs’ contract with ITV as have the profitable offers with companies similar to Princess Cruises, We Purchase Any Automobile and Waitrose.
However Phillip’s household won’t ever abandon him – and Steph seems to don’t have any plans to divorce him – regardless of the turmoil in his life lately, one insider informed MailOnline right this moment.
In reality his spouse and daughters seem like central to his comeback – with one skilled predicting the travel-loving star may very well be the following Michael Palin.
Phillip Schofield along with his spouse Steph on his birthday weekend over Easter – with their matching chocolate brown puppies, believed to be cockapoos. The couple have been married for 31 years and nonetheless put on their wedding ceremony rings
Phillip and Stephanie Lowe married in 1993 and raised two daughters, Molly, proper, and Ruby, left. His daughters are additionally large supporters – Molly is publicist
The This Morning presenter admitted that earlier than popping out he had suicidal ideas and even sought remedy on his sexuality, and added he was ‘naive’ to suppose he might suppress it when he married Stephanie in 1993 (above in 1996). However they’ve remained dedicated to one another
Phillip Schofield: Solid Away airs at 9pm on Channel 5 tonight, and can proceed on Tuesday and Wednesday on the identical time.
Phillip Schofield: Solid Away airs at 9pm on Channel 5, and can proceed on Tuesday and Wednesday on the identical time.
The star has spent 10 days on an inhabited tropical island off the coast of Madagascar the place he’s proven fending for himself – whereas additionally settling scores with those that he feels ‘threw him below the bus’, together with apparently Holly Willoughby.
Earlier than he leaves he Mr Schofield, who nonetheless wears his wedding ceremony ring, is filmed at a household barbecue with Steph and their youngsters Molly, 31, and Ruby, 28.
There are jokes about him dropping his Wordle streak however Steph additionally tells him: ‘There is no query that by doing this you are popping your head again up above the parapet for the only a few horrid those that there are on the market.’
Mr Schofield’s daughter additionally shared her assist for her father, whose profession she additionally helps handle.
‘Weirdly every little thing that is occurred lately has made us nearer. When my dad got here out, it was, it was very laborious for me. It was very laborious for your entire household. Primarily my mum, after all, every little thing was turned the wrong way up. However we talked by means of it and over time it is bought simpler’, Molly mentioned.
She mentioned: ‘I’d love folks to know what’s truly occurred, and forgive him for a mistake.’
His spouse of 31 years Stephanie stays a relentless in his life. Each nonetheless put on their wedding ceremony rings, they’ve matching puppies and have fun birthdays and Christmas collectively as a pair.
The previous ITV presenter revealed that his daughters Molly, 31, and Ruby, 28, had not ‘left his sight’ within the aftermath of his This Morning exit.
Molly can also be his publicist and has reportedly gone into battle with ITV on quite a few events – together with demanding an apology for the best way he had been handled.
‘Phil’s not completed in telly – and his women are proper behind him all the best way’, the insider mentioned.
Mr Schofield and his spouse Stephanie have been collectively for approaching 40 years – round 31 years as a married couple – and each are decided to stay married.
‘After so lengthy collectively, Steph and Phil co-dependent. They’d moderately be a united entrance and keep collectively’, the insider mentioned including that in the event that they broke up it might ‘create much more drama’ for them and their daughters.
One other buddy of a buddy mentioned: ‘They nonetheless love one another. It is that straightforward’.
Phillip is represented by his daughter Molly who additionally labored for him on the YMU company till January this yr. Now she is now operating her personal agency referred to as MMS Tasks, together with her father its prime shopper.
His youngest daughter Ruby is an accountant, who can also be an enormous assist to her well-known dad and seems in Solid Away, which start tonight, at a household BBQ together with her mum and sister.
Mr Schofield says that ‘his women’ had ‘saved his life’ within the aftermath of his exit from ITV and This Morning.
MailOnline’s supply mentioned: ‘He is been a extremely good dad to them – they usually have profited off him as a mother or father. Molly labored at YMU, which he part-owned, and was an enormous a part of their success so she may have been paid nicely and in addition paid off when he left, and he or she left.
‘I feel that they might assist him and his profession’.
The insider has questioned whether or not this can be his final TV look.
He mentioned: ‘I am certain the rankings can be superb’, including that he might do extra journey reveals for Channel 5 and attempt to be ‘the brand new Michael Palin’.
‘Most of the people nonetheless have a whole lot of good will in direction of him. He is a favorite with housewives and grannies’.
In 2017 Phil and Stephanie had a three-part journey collection, referred to as Schofield’s South African Journey.
Steph and Phil’s adventures on a South African safari confirmed a pair completely in tune with one another, and the closest of mates.
The supply added there may be nonetheless ‘potential’ for his daughters and even his spouse Stephanie to hitch him on TV if he pursues a collection about journey, a identified ardour of his.
‘However I feel audiences might discover it laborious to simply accept the dynamic of a homosexual man and his spouse – however that in itself might make it extra attention-grabbing’, they added.
In 2020 Phillip Schofield got here out as homosexual on dwell TV.
Phillip, with Holly Willoughby, addressed his choice to publicly come out as homosexual in a candid interview on This Morning following his preliminary assertion in 2020. The pair have each left the present and seem to have fallen out
Steph and Phil had a 2017 TV collection in South Africa – one insider predicted they might even return to the small display collectively if Solid Away is a success
Molly and Ruby are very near their mother and father
Talking to former buddy Holly Willoughby, he revealed there was one thing ‘nagging away at him’ earlier than his wedding ceremony to Stephanie Lowe 27 years in the past.
He spoke of how ‘unbelievable’, sort, fantastic and supportive Steph had been by means of that interval.
‘She’s superb, she’s unbelievable . . . as a spouse the best way she’s supported me . . . she’s astonishing,’ he mentioned.
The star claimed he thought he ‘could be bisexual’ and even sought remedy on his sexuality, and added he was ‘naive’ to suppose he might suppress it when he married Stephanie in 1993.
He and Steph met when he was 25. Phillip had simply landed a job on the BBC’s flagship Saturday morning present, Going Reside, and he or she was a researcher.
The younger couple moved in collectively in Chiswick, West London, and married six years later.
Phillip lately informed a buddy of mine that he had identified ‘inside three weeks’ that she was the girl he was going to marry, and had indicated that they had been deeply infatuated with one another within the early days.
Steph was at his aspect, then, when he realised his profession goals
Phillip was raised in Cornwall: his late father Brian was a French-polisher and his mom labored in a care house for the aged, however younger Phillip was obsessive about being on tv. He despatched his first job software to the BBC when he was ten years outdated, and by the point he was 17 had despatched 100 extra. He would kind them in an effort to disguise his age.
His bed room was became a studio, with spotlights and a stage, and youthful brother Tim was interviewed incessantly about each side of his life. Schofield as soon as joked that little Tim’s first phrases had been: ‘No remark.’
At bedtime he would ‘log off’ into his mirror.
He mentioned: ‘My mother and father should have thought I used to be loopy however they had been amazingly tolerant. Other than a short second in infants’ college after I thought I wished to be a gravedigger, I by no means had a considered pursuing one other profession.’
After 4 years in New Zealand between the ages of 17 and 21, he returned to the UK and commenced doing hyperlinks for youngsters’s reveals transmitted from what gave the impression to be a BBC broom cabinet.
Then he landed a job on Going Reside, the place his clean-cut seems drew comparisons with stars of the day similar to Jason Donovan.
At one level he acquired 500 fan letters every week, mainly from love-lorn teenage women who discovered him completely fascinating.
Early on he was romantically linked to Caron Keating, the Blue Peter presenter and daughter of TV icon Gloria Hunniford, and he or she was mentioned to have been devastated when it did not work out.
Then got here Stephanie Lowe. In an interview earlier than they had been married, he mentioned: ‘I are typically monogamous as a result of I’m fairly loyal. I like having somebody to return house to and talk about issues with. I like coming house when the lights are on in the home, bread is being baked and the backyard is mowed.’
Nobody ought to doubt the sincerity of his heartfelt feedback about how ‘unbelievable’, sort, fantastic and supportive Steph has been. Pictured: The couple collectively
Daughter Molly was born when he was 31, adopted by Ruby two years later.
It was 2002, when he was 40, that Schofield hit the massive time. This Morning presenter John Leslie was sacked after he was named publicly on TV as the one who had allegedly raped Ulrika Jonsson.
Into his sneakers stepped Schofield, who would turn out to be the longest-running presenter within the present’s historical past.
However he departed ITV in Might 2023 within the wake of his secret affair revelations, after leaving This Morning that very same month.
After the furore over Schofield’s admission of an ‘unwise, however not unlawful’ relationship with a youthful male colleague, former This Morning physician Ranj Singh hit out at a ‘poisonous’ tradition on the programme.
Dr Ranj claimed he raised issues about ‘bullying and discrimination’ whereas working at ITV – and afterwards felt like he was ‘managed out’ for whistleblowing.
Schofield mentioned there was ‘no toxicity’ on the programme on the time, and his allegations had been in regards to the ‘identical handful of individuals with a grudge towards me or the present who appear to have the loudest voice’.
On the second episode of Channel 5’s Phillip Schofield: Solid Away, the place the 62-year-old spends 10 days alone on a small island off the coast of Madagascar in his first return to a TV collection since leaving ITV, he addressed the claims once more, saying at first it was ‘utter boll**ks’, earlier than saying that ‘there wasn’t (toxicity) after I was there’.
‘I discovered after I left that there are a couple of folks in there that could be a bit bit poisonous,’ he added.
‘I by no means noticed it … when (you are) on the telly, you do not see stuff like that, you are protected against it, folks do not let you know, so I had no clue.’
Schofield additionally mentioned that morning TV has a whole lot of ‘superb’ folks, earlier than taking goal at what he referred to as ‘three shits’.
He referred to as two of them cowards – one for not defending him over ‘queuegate’, and the second for not ‘stepping up’ over one other matter, which he didn’t make clear.
The ultimate individual, he mentioned, was ‘simply brand-orientated’.
Alongside along with his then co-host Holly Willoughby, Schofield confronted a backlash over claims the pair skipped the queue for the late Queen Elizabeth II’s mendacity in state. They had been defended by the chief govt of ITV, Dame Carolyn McCall, who burdened the pair had been attending as members of the media to movie a phase for This Morning.
Schofield was additionally upset that there was ‘completely no loyalty proven’ to him through the furore over his affair, regardless of his 20-plus years on This Morning, and added: ‘I do know what I did was unwise, not wise, however is it sufficient to utterly destroy somebody, actually destroy somebody?’
When he was dropped by his expertise company YMU on the identical day he resigned from ITV after greater than three many years with the corporate, he says he was ‘suicidal’.
Schofield added: ‘They despatched me what appeared like a reduce and pasted textual content, (saying) ‘this time we’ll should allow you to go’.’
The 62-year-old former This Morning presenter then tasked his daughter Molly, 30, with working as his supervisor.
The presenter says on Solid Away he is aware of folks will declare he’s having a ‘mad rant’, however he doesn’t ‘care any extra’ as he has ‘nothing to lose’.
He added: ‘They’ve taken just about every little thing – status, dignity, legacy, every little thing – anyway. I am not bleating, I am simply getting it off my chest.’
An exterior overview, carried out by Jane Mulcahy KC on behalf of ITV discovered the channel made ‘appreciable efforts’ to search out out the reality about an alleged affair between Schofield and a runner in 2019, however was not capable of finding proof in regards to the rumours.
Schofield ‘reluctantly declined’ to participate within the probe due to ‘the danger to his well being’, the report in December 2023 mentioned.
