Eamonn Holmes claims ITV never inquired into Phillip Schofield‘s suspected romance with a colleague.
Schofield, 61, revealed last month that he was leaving his post as long-time anchor of breakfast show This Morning, before announcing a week later that he was leaving ITV entirely after confessing to lying about a connection with a young runner.
Since then, Eamonn, 63, has not been shy in sharing his thoughts on Schofield and their former company.
ITV said they examined reports of the connection in the aftermath of Schofield’s stunning announcement, but Eamonn now claims it wasn’t expressly questioned if an affair was taking place.
Eamonn stated on his GB News show Breakfast with Eamonn and Isabel on Wednesday that he was aware of the probe.
‘When they investigated and they asked Schofield “did you have an affair with this guy?” which they didn’t ask, I know exactly what they asked, and they then asked the young lad involved in all of this, they need a transcript of what actually took place that day because that was not a thorough investigation,’ he said.
He then took aim at Schofield personally, saying he had been ‘discredited’.
‘He has lied to his colleagues, to the Daily Mail, to his family, to his agents, to everyone, and yet people are deaf to this and say “poor Phillip, what’s he going through and he’s being bullied”,’ he said.
‘The man has lied and he’s admitted he’s lied…where do we go from here.’
In an earlier statement, ITV stated that a relationship between Schofield and the young staffer was probed in early 2020, but both parties ‘categorically and again’ refuted the claims.
Furthermore, ITV stated that it spoke with “a number of persons” who worked on This Morning but was “not furnished with, and did not locate, any proof of a relationship beyond hearsay and rumour.”
Schofield, however, stated in a recent BBC interview that no “formal” inquiry was performed.
When speaking to Amol Rajan, Schofield was asked if the investigation had been a ‘sham’ because it ‘clearly did not get to the truth’.
While he stated that it would have been very impossible for the broadcaster to thoroughly investigate, there had been no ‘official’ investigation into the rumours.
‘I think if you have two people who are lying, then what can you do?’ he said.
When asked about the scope of the inquiry, Schofield stated that a few phone calls had been made to both men.
‘I think he was asked quite a bit and I was asked a couple of times and so, it wasn’t formal, but I think bearing in mind that there were two people who were absolutely intransigent in their denial, it would have been pretty hard,’ he said.
But when asked if ITV should have taken the allegations more seriously since there was ‘potentially an abuse of power’ he simply replied: ‘Yeah.’
This Morning airs weekdays from 10am on ITV1.
Source My Celebrity Life.
