Disgraced Phillip Schofield was a popular TV personality for more than 40 years. Photo / Getty Images, File
Disgraced Phillip Schofield was a popular TV personality for more than 40 years. Photo / Getty Images, File
EDITORIAL
Television is a strange world where almost all endeavours are committed to appearances.
The downfall of a former New Zealand presenter from his high-flying position on ITV’s This Morning breakfast show is further evidence, if we needed it, that not everything on TV is as it appears.
Weeks afternews of his affair with a “much younger man” made headlines, Phillip Schofield finally broke his silence, claiming to be “broken and ashamed” but saying he’s not a groomer.
The affair did not begin until the man was in his mid-20s and Schofield claims their relationship “never came across” as an abuse of power.
He is adamant he has done nothing illegal, and he may be right. However, the confirmation that he met a 15-year-old who later became his lover throws the affair into alarm-bell territory.
His behaviour throughout the unravelling of the matter also proves his dapper facade and smooth talking masked a loquacious fake and someone quite loathsome.
As is most often the case, Schofield had long been the subject of speculation. However, his colleagues and employers were reassured by his lies and stoutly defended him.
At the time, an ITV spokeswoman dismissed Wootton’s story, stating: “It’s deeply disappointing and unfair for Phillip to be the target of this sort of malicious gossip.”
Wootton added: “As we know now, this was not ‘malicious gossip’.”
Ultimately, as the truth was closing in on Schofield, he resorted to a coward’s defence. Using his platform on one of Britain’s most popular TV shows, he issued a statement that he was “coming out as gay”.
This then buttressed his position. Rumours and conjecture could be rebuffed as homophobia. Questioning the relationship of a homosexual is readily dismissed, particularly one who has made an emotional plea to be given space to “come to terms with it”.
Interviewed by his sympathetic co-host and friend Holly Willoughby, Schofield said he had “never had any secrets” from his wife of 27 years, Stephanie Lowe. “This is tough,” he said, his voice cracking with emotion. “This is not something that has happened quickly. I’ve had to deal with this in my head for quite some time.
Phillip Schofield was said to be overwhelmed with the support he received after revealing he was gay and talking about it with co-host Holly Willoughby. Photo / ITV
“We have gone through this together. We have been very open and very honest.”
Schofield used the skirts of his closest friends and family as his craven refuge. This, also, after denouncing his brother Timothy, who has been jailed for 12 years after being convicted of sexually abusing a vulnerable teenage boy over a three-year period.
Many New Zealanders had taken some pride in watching Schofield return to his home country to a glittering career and a picture-perfect family. Schofield grew up in England before moving to East Auckland with his family when he was 19.
His first television job was as the initial presenter of TVNZ’s youth music programme Shazam! in 1982. He also spent two years working for Radio Hauraki, before moving back to the UK in 1985, where he became the first in-vision continuity presenter for Children’s BBC on weekdays.
After looking on admiringly from afar, we now know we were fooled by the appearance of a good person, doing well from making so much of his talent.
Instead, the likeable and brilliant Phillip Schofield was a fiction, created for television on a scaffold of deceit.
If there is a moral to this tale, it is to be wary of putting a primping TV personality on a pedestal.
