Phillip Schofield slams ‘utter betrayal’ by ‘fake people’ as he hits out at former colleagues ahead of TV return

29 September 2024, 09:19

Phillip Schofield has blamed the collapse of his career in show business on the ‘utter betrayal’ by “fake people” at ITV.

The former This Morning star is making a shock return to TV just 16 months after being axed from screens.

Called Cast Away, the show will see the 62-year-old sent to a tropical island for 10 days where he opens up about two years which have left his career on the brink.

Speaking ahead of the show’s launch, Schofield took aim at his former colleagues, including an apparent dig at former best pal Holly Willoughby, blaming them for the collapse of his career on TV.

Read more: Phillip Schofield says ‘coming out caused me more anguish than joy’ ahead of shock TV return

Schofield was forced to quit This Morning after having an affair with a much younger man.

Speaking on this new Channel 5 show, he says: “They know how important that (his TV career) was to me.

“They know when you throw someone under a bus, you’ve got to have a really bloody good reason to do it. Brand, ambition is not good enough.”

He continues: “People can be fake. They can be so fake with you when it’s all going well, and suddenly utter, utter betrayal.

“There are a lot of amazing people in morning television.

“I think there are only three sh*s. One of them is a coward who never stepped up in queuegate.

"One is a coward, because they never stepped up when I was being battered And the other is just brand-orientated.

"Not what you expect, not what you think you’re going to get.”

This comes after the former This Morning star revealed that he had "everything in place" for a suicide attempt but his daughter brought him back from "the edge".

Speaking on the first episode of the three-part series, Schofield says: "In the last eighteen months, it got as dark as it is possible to get.

"A year ago I got so, so close. I had everything in place, everything was set up and everything was ready and it was Molly that was looking after me."

Schofield goes on to say that the only reason he is still alive is because his 31-year-old daughter, Molly, talked him down from "the edge".

He explains that she said: "Can you imagine what it would do to me if you did this on my watch?"

"That was just enough to take a step back from the edge," he said.

"And I could have been hospitalised… But then I thought, 'That is going to get out.'

"So I just raced to the family home and shut the gates."

Addressing his decision to return to public life for the show, he said: "I locked myself away from the outside world. But now I want to see if the ultimate isolation can finally set me free."

Channel 5 has said that Schofield being left on an island with a handful of cameras will allow him to "confront the challenges of total isolation, the forces of nature, and provides the time to battle within his own mind as he explores his own controversial story".

The series will air across three nights from Sunday until Tuesday at 9pm on each of those days.

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