Jason Gardiner has claimed he confronted Phillip Schofield about the rumours of his relationship with a younger This Morning employee.
The former ITV presenter resigned from This Morning after admitting he had an ‘unwise but not illegal relationship’.
Dancing on Ice judge Gardiner claims he first heard rumours about Schofield’s affair in 2020. He said he sent Schofield a private message on Twitter to try and get to the bottom of the situation.
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“I went into a bit of a tailspin,” he recalled in an interview with The Sun. “I said, ‘I know this is a very difficult moment for you and I support you in your decision to come out, but I also need to ask you about certain rumours that are going around online and are you aware of them?”
Gardiner claimed that Schofield replied to the direct message with one word: “Seriously?”
The Australian dancer and choreographer added: “That was it. It was very dismissive and that made me uneasy because I thought, ‘I’ve reached out to you very authentically,’ and it kind of really p*ssed me off.”
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Schofield has given a series of interviews to The Sun and BBC News in which he claimed that the relationship was consensual, and started in his dressing room on the ITV mid-morning show in 2020.
Schofield told BBC News that he thinks his career is over and he’s ‘lost everything’ following the scandal.
He admitted that the affair was a ‘grave error’ and added: “I shouldn’t have done it.”
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Schofield said: "I have to talk about television in the past tense, which breaks my heart.
"I have lost everything.
“What am I going to do with my days?
"I see nothing ahead of me but blackness, and sadness, and regret, and remorse, and guilt.
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“I did something very wrong, and then I lied about it consistently."
Of his former colleague, he said: “He is an innocent party here.
“I was older, I should have known better. [The relationship] was consensual, but it was my fault."
In a statement released last month after his shocking departure from This Morning and amid bombshell comments from his former colleagues like Eamonn Holmes, Schofield wrote: "Now I no longer work on @thismorning I am free to say this.
"I hope you have noticed that it’s the same handful of people with a grudge against me or the show who seem to have the loudest voice.
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“This Morning IS the best show to work on, with the best people. In all the years I worked there there was no toxicity.
"You can listen to those persistently loud voices if you like. But the thousands of guests over the years, thousands of staff and crew, hundreds of presenters and contributors all know, it IS a family of wonderful, talented, kind and hardworking people."
LADbible has reached out to reps for Phillip Schofield for comment.
Featured Image Credit: ITV/BBCTopics: This Morning, Celebrity, Phillip Schofield