PHILLIP Schofield burns a list of ‘toxic people’ on Cast Away, as he vows to move forward with his life after the This Morning scandal.
The TV star has returned to television after 16 months off air after admitting to an ‘unwise but not illegal’ affair with a young runner.
And as another episode of Cast Away aired on Channel 5, Phil didn’t hold back as he burnt his list.
Sitting on the sand in front of a huge bonfire, Phillip can be heard saying: “You shed all sorts of skins through your life.
“There are things that didn’t work out, there are people who you’d hoped would be around, and then they’re not and you shed that skin.”
He went on: “There’s something that I’ve done here that I haven’t shared with you yet, now’s the time” as he pulled out a notebook.
Phillip spoke directly to the camera, and said: “Over the course of my ten days, I have written down all the things and all the people who were and are toxic in my life.
“And so I have that now,” Phil says as he scrunches a piece of paper in his hand.
He throws it into the fire as he tells the camera: “And now the toxic bank is empty.”
It comes after he opened up on being ‘thrown under the bus’ by the people he worked with during the scandal.
Speaking to the camera in the second episode, he said: “People just went, who I thought were my friends and they just went and that’s like ‘what the hell’.”
He continued: “I have been chucked under a bus, and I could drive the same bus over so many people but I’m not that sort of person, I never have been.”
“But if I sit down with a camera and the light’s going who knows what I’ll say.”
Later in the second episode of the three-part series, Phil said: “I miss parts of being on TV, certainly.
“I miss most of it, if I’m honest, I miss most of it.
“But there are bits that I really, really, really don’t miss.
By Rod McPhee
OVER three nights – and three hour-long episodes – Phillip Schofield has been bearing his soul in new Channel 5 show Cast Away.
And it’s basically a chance for the former This Morning host to explain the circumstances that saw him leave the show last year.
To put it mildly, he left under something of a cloud, admitting he’d had a fling with a much younger runner on the programme. But in the C5 show he presents his own versions of events – one which is at odds with the narrative that emerged at the time.
He was portrayed as a man who’d had an “unwise” affair, who’d resigned as a result and had let many of his colleagues down.
But in Cast Away Philip insists he was fired by ITV and not for the affair, but because of the bad publicity that surrounded the crimes of his paedophile brother. He summed it up best when he claimed he’d been “pushed under a bus.”
After watching Cast Away what you’re left with is something rather confusing, however.
Did Philip think he’d done something wrong by having the fling with the runner, or not? For example, he said he wouldn’t have been slammed for it quite so much if it were a heterosexual fling.
He said he: “would have received a pat on the back for having an affair with a woman.” This infers that the only thing wrong with it was that it was a same sex fling. So why does he also say: “I will be forever sorry. I screwed up. I made a mistake.”
The answer, I suspect, is that the whole affair was a murky business. There were so many blurred lines around appropriateness, professionalism and honesty.
The only firm conclusion you can draw from the show is that Phillip himself isn’t ENTIRELY sure to what extent He was guilty of wrongdoing.
Amid the confusion, what will the viewing public think? I suspect that this will leave those who disliked Phillip to feel even more suspicious of him.
Those who backed him, will feel reassured too. But those who still aren’t sure what to think will be none-the-wiser – and I’m not sure if that’s what Phillip would have wanted.
“You learn a lot about people, I don’t miss that.”
Phil blames his brother for being “fired” from his lucrative This Morning and Dancing on Ice gigs.
In April 2023, Timothy Schofield was convicted of 11 sexual offences involving a child – including emotionally blackmailing a child into sex acts.
However, according to The Mirror, ITV insiders are highly refuting the claims, saying: “Phillip’s new comments are simply untrue, he is lying again.”
