Eamonn Holmes regrets supporting Phillip Schofield when he came out


Eamonn Holmes has made more shocking claims about Phillip Schofield (Picture: GB News/ITV)

Eamonn Holmes has continued with his bombshell claims against Phillip Schofield in his GB News tell-all interview.

The former This Morning host, 63, sat down with Dan Wootton in a bid to expose the former ITV presenter, who recently resigned from ITV after admitting to lying about an affair with a much younger male colleague.

Phil, 61, was dropped by his agent of 35 years as a result and will no longer host the British Soap Awards, which would’ve been his last public commitment.

He has now been dropped as a Prince’s Trust ambassador, while the future of This Morning remains unclear, with reports swirling that guests are refusing interviews and brands don’t want to renew sponsorship deals.

Meanwhile, former co-host of 13 years, Holly Willoughby, 42, took an early half-term break and is due to return to the sofa next week, but has also released a statement claiming Phil lied to her when she quizzed him on his relationship with the runner.

Eamonn has been incredibly vocal about his feelings towards Phil since the drama began, branding him a ‘liar’ and claiming he took him and his wife Ruth Langsford for ‘fools’.

He says he and Ruth Langsford were ‘used’ in Phil’s coming out (Picture: S Meddle/ITV/Shutterstock)

In the first part of his GB News interview, he made shocking allegations about Phil’s relationship with the young co-worker, which occurred while he was married and before he came out as gay.

He said Phil would have ‘playtime’ with the youngster on Thursdays before he was chauffeured into work the next day, also saying Ruth is still in touch with the former runner.

And now, Eamonn has said he feels ’embarrassed’ and ‘ashamed’ looking back at how he supported Phil when he came out as gay in a historic moment on This Morning in February 2020.

He alleges that Phil’s coming out was a bid to get ahead of any other reports about the relationship.

Eamonn said he was ‘ambushed’ the morning after the National Television Awards and told by producers that the usual Friday episode with him and Ruth would not be going ahead, as Holly and Phil were taking over for the first segment.

The TV presenter came out as gay, live on This Morning in 2020 (Picture: Anthony Harvey/Shutterstock)

He claimed the NTAs the previous night saw the young runner who had the affair with Phil confront ITV stars, which Eamonn believes was the catalyst in Phil revealing his sexuality.

‘I’m driving in, they say, “Phillip will be driving in to appear on the programme today?”, “Why?”, “We can’t tell you, Holly will be coming in as well. You will be hosting bits of the programme but they have something to say.” I’m thinking, oh good! Hopefully, he’s going! But it wasn’t to be.’

Eamonn proceeded to describe the moment Phil came out to him that morning.

‘He comes into our dressing room and he falls down on his knees, crying, I said, “What’s the matter?”, “I’m gay!”,’ Eamonn reenacted.

‘I looked at him and said, “Is that all? What is this?”, I thought he’d killed a child or something! I stood him up and pulled him up, and said, “So what, you’re gay!”, and that tied into a lot of things that you may have heard.

‘I think anyone to be imprisoned in a life that isn’t true to them is totally wrong and we were very supportive, Ruth hugged him. It wouldn’t have entered our minds that the man would’ve been discriminated against for being gay, so we were very, very supportive of that.’

However, Eamonn went on to say he felt ‘used’ in Phil’s coming out episode.

As filming was about to begin, he claims producers asked several times if he and Ruth wanted a script, and it gave him ‘bad vibes’, which is why he didn’t say anything in the intro and let Ruth do the talking.

This Morning then panned to Holly and Phil, with Eamonn calling their segment ‘false’ and ‘choreographed’.

‘Then we notice, The Sun newspaper’s here, so the story was sold to them. The director of daytime was there, the editor was there, the agents YMU were there,’ and we began to feel… this is not our show at all,’ he said.

‘It then materialises that all is not as it seems.’

Eamonn is ’embarrassed’ at how he supported Phil (Picture: S Meddle/ITV/REX/Shutterstock)

Eamonn then accused Phil of ‘doing a deal with the newspapers’ to put out a ‘version’ of events.

‘It was all a bit weird,’ he stated.

‘At that stage, though, I believed he was gay and he was coming out and that was the end of it. But we were lied to.

‘Ruth and I, to this day, are embarrassed and ashamed when we see those pictures,’ he said, referring to how he and Ruth hugged Phil after his big moment on the sofa.

‘We see people who are tortured by their sexuality and what they have to go through, and this man used it as a cover-up for something else that doesn’t reflect well on him.

‘We feel angry about that. We feel used.’



Phillip Schofield statement in full

‘I am making this statement via the Daily Mail to whom I have already apologised personally for misleading, through my lawyer who I also misled, about a story which they wanted to write about me a few days ago.

‘The first thing I want to say is: I am deeply sorry for having lied to them, and to many others about a relationship that I had with someone working on This Morning. I did have a consensual on-off relationship with a younger male colleague at This Morning.

‘Contrary to speculation, whilst I met the man when he was a teenager and was asked to help him to get into television, it was only after he started to work on the show that it became more than just a friendship. That relationship was unwise, but not illegal. It is now over.

‘When I chose to come out I did so entirely for my own wellbeing. Nobody “forced” me out. Neither I nor anyone else, to my knowledge, has ever issued an injunction, super or otherwise, about my relationship with this colleague, he was never moved on or sacked by or because of me. In an effort to protect my ex-colleague I haven’t been truthful about the relationship.

‘But my recent, unrelated, departure from This Morning fuelled speculation and raised questions which have been impacting him, so for his sake it is important for me to be honest now.

‘I am painfully conscious that I have lied to my employers at ITV, to my colleagues and friends, to my agents, to the media and therefore the public and most importantly of all to my family. I am so very, very sorry, as I am for having been unfaithful to my wife.

‘I have therefore decided to step down from the British Soap Awards, my last public commitment, and am resigning from ITV with immediate effect expressing my immense gratitude to them for all the amazing opportunities that they have given me.

‘I will reflect on my very bad judgment in both participating in the relationship and then lying about it. To protect his privacy, I am not naming this individual and my deepest wish is that both he and his family can now move on with their lives free from further intrusion, and that this statement will enable them to do so.

‘I ask the media now to respect their privacy. They have done nothing wrong, and I ask that their privacy should be respected.’


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