Phillip Schofield’s ‘hands were shaking’ as he broke down over affair with younger colleague: ‘Do you want me to die?’-Pierra Willix-Entertainment – Metro

Phillip Schofield has broken down and ‘mentioned suicide’ as he spoke about his affair with a much younger This Morning colleague.

The long-time presenter of the ITV breakfast programme left the show last month and resigned from the broadcaster altogether a week later after admitting he had an ‘unwise but not illegal’ relationship with a runner on the show.

The pair had met when the young man was 15, but the 61-year-old said that the affair only began after he turned 18, however Schofield said he did lie about the nature of their relationship to his bosses and colleagues.

Now the presenter has given two tell-all interviews, including one with the BBC that was released on Friday morning.

At one point during the 45-minute-long interview with Amol Rajan, Schofield struggled to hold back tears and said that since the news broke, he was experiencing ‘a weird numbness’.

‘I know that’s a selfish point of view, but you come to a point where you just think “how much are you supposed to take” if all of those people who write all of that stuff, do they ever think that there’s actually a person at the other end,’ he said.

Phillip Schofield has broken down in a television interview (Picture: BBC)

In a piece published online, Rajan detailed the experience of speaking to Schofield in the wake of the bombshell revelations, and shared that while speaking to him, Schofield’s ‘hands were shaking’.

Explaining that the public broadcaster had wanted the interview to ‘get to the truth by applying scrutiny’, he went on to write that ‘the task was made significantly more delicate by his clearly very highly charged emotional state’.

‘As Tony Dolce, one of our two camera operators (along with Tony Jolliffe) observed afterwards, Schofield’s hands were shaking through much of the interview,’ he said.

He spoke about the impact of the affair being made public (Picture: BBC

‘Before we began, after we finished, and during the two short breaks in filming, he instinctively reached for a small green vape, from which he took long drags.

‘Schofield, who I had never met, mentioned suicide within moments of our acquaintance, and repeatedly during the interview.’

Schofield also spoke of the criticism he has faced since admitting the affair, saying: ‘Do you want me to die? Because that’s where I am.’

He said he saw ‘nothing ahead’ of him and he had to talk about his career in television ‘in the past tense’.

‘It is relentless, and it is day after day, after day after day.

‘If you don’t think that that is going to have the most catastrophic effect on someone’s mind… do you want me to die? Because that’s where I am.

‘I have lost everything.’

The long-time host of This Morning resigned from the show last month (Picture: Ken McKay/ ITV/ Shutterstock)

Rajan went on to write that ‘when an interviewee presents themselves in this way, there is a tension between a duty of care to the individual and a duty of care to the truth’.

But he added that ‘hard questions still need to be asked’.

In his interview with The Sun, which was published on Thursday night, Schofield said he had ‘lost everything’ and admitted he didn’t know if he would ever be able to work in TV again.

‘I’ve lost everything. It’s all gone,’ he said.

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‘Telly was my safe space, the one thing I loved. Now I don’t know if I will ever work on telly again.’

He explained that he also didn’t know what his ‘identity’ was anymore.

This Morning airs weekdays from 10am on ITV1.

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