Phillip Schofield has given an interview to the BBC’s Amol Rajan in which he appears utterly broken.
The now ex-This Morning presenter’s voice breaks as he explains that he would not be in the interview – or on this planet – were it not for the love and support of his daughters over the past 10 days.
Hearing this admission, the BBC presenter feels compelled to ask if he is fit to do this interview.
Schofield, a household name for more than four decades, replies yes, he has to.
It’s perhaps the most revealing sentence in a difficult but compelling watch.
We are told Phillip Schofield is sorry, that he knows his career is over.
It is a textbook example of a media communications strategy designed to “reclaim the narrative”.
It’s the kind of strategy that very well-paid consultants are employed to recommend.
And it’s the same kind of advice offered to Prince Andrew when his scandals tarnished not just his own standing but that of the institution he embodied.
Interview tables have turned for Phillip Schofield
Phillip Schofield embodies ITV and light entertainment.
His image is one of wholesome TV dinners, good company for mums on maternity leave, the perfect mix of recipes, celebrity gossip and mild innuendo.
Yet politicians would often fear the This Morning couch. More so than a grilling from Jeremy Paxman or Kirsty Wark on Newsnight, because of what political apparatchiks call “reach”.
The show attracts a mass audience of voters who don’t necessarily buy a newspaper every day or listen to the PM programme religiously.
These are people whose votes are cast not with a deep set of ideology necessarily but often with a gut sense of how they feel; better or worse off, safer or more insecure.
Phillip Schofield’s platform allowed him to poke at the integrity of politicians with a stick sharp enough to cost them elections.
Now his own integrity is burst, his own career is in tatters.
Phillip Schofield interview forces shamed star to confront truth
The initial minutes of this exclusive interview invoke a degree of sympathy for Phillip Schofield.
He looks and sounds sorry. It’s a start.
But under expert questioning from Amol Rajan, Schofield is presented with the facts as he has just described them himself.
“You met a boy online, you offered to help him, you got him a job in TV, you started a friendship, it became sexual. How is that not grooming by any definition?” Is broadly how it goes.
Skewered.
For all the tears and apologies, Philip Schofield cannot see that he has abused his power in the most profound way.
The details of the person he had as an affair with, including their age and gender, are completely secondary to the fact that he had power, and he used it.
He did so under the full glare of the TV lights and in the dressing room of the most watched daytime TV show in the country.
Then he lied about it.
To his family, his actual wife, to his TV ‘wife’ and for many years, to himself.
Final curtain on TV career, but not the last word on this scandal
It’s the wholesomeness, the hubris and the hypocrisy which means we won’t see Phillip Schofield present TV awards ever again.
And do you know what? That’s ok.
He has enjoyed decades on stage and on TV in a career that most people can only dream of. He is a wealthy man in his early 60s.
Sometimes, it's better to say nothing at all.
Either his hubris got the better of him, or badly advised
Amol Rajan's final question gives an idea of perhaps who is driving this story#PhillipSchofieldpic.twitter.com/uxkwbluj4S
— capellarec (@Capellarec) June 2, 2023
His career has come to an end. But there is life ahead of him, away from the glare of this scandal.
That TV interview, like so many others, was designed to bring closure.
It was partially successful.
It will not end the relentless coverage of what went on behind closed doors at ITV.
And it has not absolved Phillip Schofield of his behaviour.
But it has given him one final say before those technicolour curtains fall for good.
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