PIERS Morgan has jumped to Phillip Schofield’s defence and called for an end to his “relentless persecution” as he is “on the edge”.
Schofield, 61 – who was last week axed from This Morning – sensationally left the show before revealing he had an affair with a much-younger male employee.
The former Dancing On Ice presenter, who was married at the time, branded the relationship “unwise but not illegal” amid the ongoing This Morning furore.
But TalkTV host Piers has now weighed in on the star’s affair and slammed critics for his “relentless persecution” in a social media post.
He penned a tweet saying: “Unless Phillip Schofield’s ex-lover contradicts his version of events to @TheSun & BBC, then it’s time to stop this relentless persecution of a guy who’s lost everything and looks right on the edge to me.
“He doesn’t seem to have committed any crime, and he’s not a Govt minister.”
Piers had previously said in his column that he feels for Phillip Schofield after the way he was dismissed as This Morning presenter.
Schofield is at pains to publicly apologise to his former lover but desperately wants to set the record straight on how the pair met.
He maintained the pair were “not boyfriends” and they only had five or six romantic encounters over a few months.
However, Schofield said the affair “was a grave error”, adding: “I shouldn’t have done it.”
He is keen to point out the chronology of events, and make clear the pair were not in touch romantically or inappropriately after they first communicated when the boy was just 15.
He added that they did talk on Twitter but it was “a completely innocent backwards and forwards over a period of time about a job, about careers.”
According to Schofield, the first romantic encounter between him and the man took place in his ITV dressing room and was “consensual”.
In an interview with The Sun he said: “Then one day something happened that just changed it. That is the moment I look back on, and regret so deeply.
“It was in my dressing room in 2017, it was a consensual moment, it was mutual.
“It was not a love affair, it was not a relationship, we were not boyfriends; we were mates..
“I was really struggling with my sexuality at that time in the build up to what happened.
“But over a period of time it happened maybe five or six times.
“You look at yourself. I was unprofessional, one time, in a 41-year career.
“I know I did that. And there is no excuse. I won’t put forward an excuse. No one did anything wrong apart from me.”
The TV star also maintains that his colleague was 20 years old when he first had any kind of sexual contact with him.
Meanwhile, speaking to the BBC in an interview broadcast this morning, Schofield said has “lost everything” and told of a “catastrophic effect” on his mind.
The former This Morning presenter said the fallout from the revelations had been “relentless”.
And he added that he felt he had no future after losing his career and didn’t know how he would fill his days now.
Schofield said: “I see nothing ahead of me but blackness, and sadness, and regret, and remorse, and guilt.
“I did something very wrong, and then I lied about it consistently.”
