Phillip Schofield has responded to comments from Fern Britton about their long-rumoured rift on the set of This Morning.
While his 2023 exit from the daytime show was seen as a dramatic fall from grace for the long-standing presenter, Schofield, 64, was previously alleged to have feuded with his former co-host Britton, 68.
Britton, who left the show in 2009, addressed their rift in a new interview with The Guardian this week, acknowledging that they’d once had a good friendship and saying of the experience: “It was hard, it was very difficult, very upsetting.”
Schofield, 64, has now offered his own thoughts on the rift – the details of which the pair have never shared – with his representative telling The Independent: “They were very strange times, but he remembers his time working alongside Fern with nothing but fondness.”
Schofield has kept a relatively low profile since admitting to lying about having a consensual relationship with a younger man who worked as a runner on This Morning, and subsequently leaving ITV.
Schofield began working on This Morning in 2002 alongside Britton, who maintained that the pair had initially got on well until their friendship started to change. “Then, you know, give it time, and it wasn’t right,” she said.
The complex nature of their friendship made his Schofield’s scandal particularly hard to handle, Britton explained. “It was very mixed emotions for me, that one,” she said.
“I can’t really explain it, because we did have a very good working relationship, until we didn’t, so it was tricky. I wish him well. I hope it all settles down, and he finds some happiness.”
Schofield left ITV in 2023, when he addressed the relationship he had with the younger man on the set of This Morning. Schofield said that he met the man when he was 15 and when Schofield was “maybe” in his mid-fifties.
He said that he had helped the teenager secure work experience, but claimed that their affair only began after the man started working at ITV, when he was at least 20, and had been “consensual”. Schofield called the relationship “unwise” but not “illegal”.
Schofield’s last TV appearance came in 2024 on Channel 5’s Cast Away. In May, he told the Daily Mail that there was “no way back” for him into the TV industry.
His long-time co-host – and former best friend – Holly Willoughby also stepped away from This Morning in 2023, but this week teased her return to the screen with a new YouTube channel.
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