Phillip Schofield has resigned with “immediate effect” from ITV.
The former host of This Morning admitted to having an affair with a messenger on the programme in a statement.
This comes after Phillip departed the ITV programme he co-hosted for 20 years with Holly Willoughby, 42, amid rumours of a ‘feud’.
Now, the broadcaster has departed the channel entirely and will not host the British Soap Awards next week, as he has done every year since 2006.
His agent of thirty-five years has also dismissed him.
Phillip made the shocking announcement when he disclosed he had a “on-and-off relationship” with a younger This Morning showrunner.
In a statement, Phillip characterised the affair, which occurred during his 30-year marriage to Stephanie Lowe, as “unwise but not illegal.”
Phillip and Stephanie have two daughters: Ruby Lowe, 27 years old, and Molly Lowe, 30 years old.
On his resignation from ITV, in a statement to the Daily Mail, he said: ‘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.
Phillip continued by saying he would “reflect” on his “extremely poor judgement” in entering the relationship and 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,’ added Phillip.
‘I ask the media now to respect their privacy. They have done nothing wrong, and I ask that their privacy should be respected.’
Phillip began his statement by stating he had a “consensual on-and-off” relationship with a “younger male This Morning colleague.”
‘Contrary to speculation,’ he continued, ‘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.’
He added that when he chose to come out as homosexual, he did so ‘entirely for my own wellbeing’ and nobody ‘forced’ him to do so.
‘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,’ he continued.
‘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.’
