Phillip Schofield says he’s ‘lost everything’ and ‘understands how Caroline Flack felt’

Phillip Schofield has asked ‘do you want me to die?’ in an interview released this morning and says he has ‘lost everything’.

The former This Morning presenter has spoken out in his first interview since he departed the show, after it was revealed he had an affair with a younger male colleague .

After the revelations came to light, Schofield resigned as presenter on the ITV daytime show and was dropped by his agency YMU shortly afterwards, as he admitted to the ‘unwise’ but ‘not illegal’ romantic relationship with the runner.

Speaking in an interview with the BBC’s Amol Rajan, released on Friday morning (June 2nd), he discussed the public backlash and abuse he has faced online and in the media since admitting to the affair.

When Rajan began by asking how he was, Schofield replied: “I think I understand how Caroline Flack felt.”

Schofield, visibly in a highly emotionally charged state, said: “If my daughters hadn’t been there, I wouldn’t be here. And, they’ve guarded me, and wouldn’t let me out of their sight.

“I know that’s a selfish point of view. But you come to a point where you just think, how much are you supposed to take? 

“If all of those people that write all that stuff, do they ever think that there’s actually a person at the other end?”

He added: “I have to talk about television in the past tense, which breaks my heart. I have lost everything. If I get through this I don’t know how I move forward. What am I going to do with my days?

“I see nothing ahead of me but blackness and sadness and regret and remorse and guilt. I did something very wrong and then I lied about it consistently… consistently lied about. You can’t live with that. How do you live with that?”

The ex-daytime TV presenter said he felt he had to go ahead with an interview because ‘there is an innocent person here, who didn’t do anything wrong’ who he said is ‘vulnerable and probably feels like I do’.

He urged the media to leave his former lover alone saying: “And I just have to say stop with him, ok with me, but stop with him. Leave him alone now.” Adding he was ‘massively’ concerned about his welfare.

Schofield was also ’emphatic’ in his denial over allegations that he had groomed the man, as yesterday he told The Sun: “I did not [groom him].

“There are accusations of all sorts of things. It never came across that way [an abuse of power] because we’d become mates. I don’t know about that.”

And he also denied there had ever been a ‘feud’ between him and his former co-presenter and ‘TV sister’ Holly Willoughby. “I’ve lost my best friend. I let her down,” he told The Sun.

“Holly did not know. And she was one of the first texts that I sent, to say, ‘I am so, so sorry that I lied to you’.” The pair had presented This Morning together since 2009, with Willoughby due to return to the show on Monday.

Alison Hammond and Dermot O’Leary have been among the presenters hosting the programme in recent weeks. 

Schofield went on to say that his ‘greatest apology’ over the fallout from the affair was to his former lover and that he would ‘die sorry’ for what he had done.