Entertainment
ITV executives deny runner involved in Phillip Schofield affair received ‘pay-off’-Sabrina Barr-Entertainment – Metro
The runner previously worked on This Morning.
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ITV executives have addressed the claim that the runner who had an affair with Phillip Schofield received a ‘pay-off’, stressing that the settlement that he received was ‘completely standard’.
Last month, it was confirmed that Schofield would be leaving This Morning after two decades on the programme.
The 61-year-old later confirmed in a statement that he lied about having an affair with a younger male runner on the programme, admitting that he concealed the truth from his colleagues, employers, friends and family, in addition to not being truthful to his former co-host Holly Willoughby, 42.
Last month, it was alleged that the runner had been ‘paid off by ITV’, with the man having moved from This Morning to Loose Women.
However, during a Culture, Media and Sport Committee session on Wednesday June 14, the ITV representatives present denied that was the case, with the runner referred to as ‘Person X’.
MP John Nicolson asked: ‘We’ve talked about non-disclosure agreements a number of times today, and you’ve confirmed Mr X has not been asked to sign a non-disclosure agreement, though he was given a pay-off, wasn’t he?’
The ITV representatives clarified that the runner was made ‘redundant’ (Picture: PA/BBC)
Kyla Mullins, the general counsel and company secretary for ITV, refuted the claim.
‘I wouldn’t characterise it as a pay-off. His role was made redundant,’ she stated.
After ITV chief executive Dame Carolyn McCall explained that he was made redundant after lockdown, Mullins continued to explain his role with the company.
‘He was a fixed-term contractor, so staff. We treat in exactly same way. He’d been on fixed-term contracts throughout his time on ITV.’
Nicolson questioned: ‘Is that normal to give pay-offs to folks who are non-staff?’
Schofield apologised for lying about the affair (Picture: Ken McKay/ITV/REX/Shutterstock)
‘It’s normal at ITV. It was an absolutely standard process. I have spoken to our chief people officer who has confirmed that. His settlement agreement that he entered into was completely standard.’
Mullins added that in her understanding, the payment was ‘absolutely standard’ and ‘formulaic’.
Dame Carolyn stressed that it was a ‘redundancy’, ‘because his role was redundant post-Covid’.
During the committee session, the ITV chief executive acknowledged that there was an ‘imbalance of power’ in Schofield’s relationship with ‘Person X’.
‘The imbalance of dynamics in that relationship makes it deeply inappropriate and we have policies that say that very clearly,’ she said.
She claimed that ITV worked ‘very, very hard for many months’ to ask the two men involved, as well as those in production, ‘if they knew something was going on’, adding: ‘It was repeatedly denied by both individuals.’
More to follow.
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