So Phil is admitting an affair with a much younger man...

...but it was legal.

Can't help feeling sorry for that guy, having this drenched up.

Imagine if he was straight and this was a young woman he had a relationship with. Crucifixion and Yewtree investigation.

As it is he’ll get a pat on his back for being brave. 

Imagine if he was straight and this was a young woman he had a relationship with. Crucifixion and Yewtree investigation.

really?

lots of straight tv presenters getting “crucified” for sleeping with 18 year old women are there?

Phillip Schofield is 61, was married at the time, and was in a significant position of power over this young person. The brain is still developing til we're 25. 60+ is considered developmentally elderly.

If the pic's online are accurate, the age difference seems to be circa 40 years (2 generations).

Best case scenario, this is completely unethical and immoral. How sad for Schofield's ex wife and daughters to be put through all of this once again.

Virginia Giuffre wasnt 18 

She was 17 when she met Prince Andrew. Above age of consent in UK but not the US. The photo of her with Andrew was taken in the UK. The allegation about Prince Andrew is not based on age of consent but on absence of consent.

As Bertha says, the story re Schofield has been in the public domain since 2020. I've seen it mentioned multiple times on the internet. It's just that none of the print or broadcast media were prepared to report it. My recollection is that there is not an age of consent angle to the story (hence Schofield's statement today) but there is a potential grooming angle.

The issue for Schofield is that he claimed back in 2019/2020 that he did not have a physical relationship with the person involved. He said that to ITV, to his agent, etc. That was a lie. The fact he has been dropped by his agency is a bad sign. It's like Nixon - it was the lie that did for him.

I truly have no interest in what celebs do with their genitals 

Yes affairs are devastating for the family 

But there is a war in ukraine, people starving, kids without safe places to sleep etc etc. This is not news 

Btw lots of older men have affairs with younger women 

I'd hate to think this is front page news because of the fact it's two men, but it does strike as that 

His career is stalled until the runner decides which way way to go.

1. Headdown, no media statements.  Schofield has gone for two years.

2. Full interviews but essentially supportive.  Massive love in.

3. I was abused.  Schofield might clear some of his reputation in court if abuse not provable but cant see him doing a Depp.

The statement was issued thru the Heil so he obvs has not a leg to stand on, that’s to avoid them running something massive, plus his agent’s dropped him. If there’s any underage element to it, and that’s by no means clear, but it’s all been drip drip to date, then he’s toast.

Any idea why:

 

1) Papers are only today reporting what has been known for quite a long time already (simply fear of libel if story untrue); and

2) Why Mail and Sun are not naming the other guy. Can't imagine it's through kindness of their hearts?

 

"only front page news because it's two men."

No way. 

I believe the allegations are that P.S. met the gentleman in question when he was 12 (there is photo evidence), followed him on Twitter when he was 15, at some point it developed into a sexual relationship, and P.S. got him TV jobs and got him onscreen.

Would have been absolutely crucified for doing this with a girl. It looks more like being gay is the only thing that's saving him from a public flogging.

Barry and homophobes out in force on this 

If he's groomed an underage kid then bang him up 

If he's used his position of power and fame to get laid, well he becomes like a lot of famous men who are never front page news for it

If it’s a 19 year old and him I can’t really see the huge problem. If it were a rich 57 year old man and a 19 year old dolly bird it’s gross but it’s not illegal. The issue is the press knows more and it seems to be about the fact this man was a child when they first met (shockingly Twitter is showing his face and there is a pic where he looks no older than 13). So it looks as if he could have groomed him. 
 

Right now that runner could make a million from his story and I agree with Rhialto about where it could go. The runner ought to sell it before someone in his family do. Everyone is going to come out the woodwork now with this. What I don’t understand is why itv or any papers did nothing when we all knew about this runner three years ago when he came out as gay. Clearly someone had threatened a story. 
 

The press witch-hunt on ps is horrible though : it’s not going to end well. Ps is currently being compared on Twitter to jimmy saville. All grim.

Yes lots of alt right types think a gay man getting laid is basically Jimmy saville 

He may well be or he may well not be 

But probably should wait for the police on that 

Mandy Smith lived in Tottenham as a child. She met Rolling Stones bassist Bill Wyman when she attended the BPI Awards with her older sister Nicola in 1984, while she was 13 years old.[1][2] Wyman was 47, but wrote in his 1990 autobiography: "She took my breath away ... she was a woman at thirteen." The relationship only became public two-and-a-half years later, when she reached the age of 16

I don’t remember the same furore and disapprobation in the 80s when this came out, In retrospect it’s pretty much identical. 

It's not the 80s Kaulbach, I think there would be some pretty heavy criticism today. 

The runner is obviously a child in some of the clips doing the twitter rounds, although Schofield makes clear nothing happened until he was an adult. And he is of course, a man of integrity, we already know that.

 

I’m sure plenty happened in Phil’s dreams before the chap became an adult who was very grateful to the man who’d got him a start in an industry that’s notoriously hard to get into…

I reckon Gordon has tales to tell from the broom cupboard.  Big pay off is just what an ageing gopher who’s fallen on hard times needs.

I was too young at the time. I remember it being commented on when they got married, but I don’t remember any particularly onerous consequences for Wyman. He stayed with the Stones for another 7 years. Not dropped by his agent. Continued to have a career in an industry that didn’t shun him.

We have come a long way. 

Jerry Lee Lewis married his teen cousin, no? A mere what 70 years ago?

the point about Schofield is he was in effect protected by Big Telly for decades. Who knows what will emerge in tomorrow’s Heil???

kaulbach, I seem to recall there were a lot of “go on Bill” and “get in there” type comments. This was after all an era where schoolgirls went topless in daily newspapers. 

What’s the timing of this? The story was all out 3 odd years ago when he came out. Is there a lot more to it than was initially released or has it got to do with the brother and PS being in cahoots in some kind of ring?

Agree - it was more along the lines of “Bill’s bagged himself a 16yr old model, what a total Ledge”. 

Whilst it was quite obviously the grooming of an underage girl I don’t remember any sort of tabloid witch-hunt or lynching. 

OB when he came out he told lots of people that he hadn't had a relationship with an employee that he'd first befriended when he was 12.  Turns out that was a big lie.  Sounds like it was a little bit "I got you this job so now show me how grateful you are".

the bit that’s making me quite uncomfortable is all the pictures and videos of the runner doing the rounds on twitter

the kevin spacey thing is different as the men themselves came forward to accuse him 

afaik the runner hasn’t said anything publicly, people online have just been hounding his social media to try to put together a story

hope he’s ok

It's a bit like Katherine Jenkins and the cocaine. 

"Listen, we're going to run this story. If you co-operate, you can give it some spin and we will pay you some cash. If not, well, we'll just run it our way anyway. Your move."

Ok so I'm utterly confused about the whole thing (not my sexuality, what PS did or didn't do) 

Either way, I hope he is punished if he needs to be and any victims get the support they need 

But if this is a media witch-hunt because he is gay then I hope that stops immediately 

yeah my bottom line is - and this is without any evidence of abuse being covered up, which is completely different - it’s not the job of the media (or let alone someone’s employer!) to out someone for having a consensual, legal affair

lots of chat about prince andrew and kevin spacey in this thread (and online), not a lot of discussion about michael barrymore 

we simply don’t know enough about what happened yet 

At 61 he can retire and walk away, and the reputational aspect is largely irrelevant as he’s a daytime telly frontman, so it’s not as if he has a body of work that will suffer (like Kevin Spacey for example). 

It’s not the exit he would have wanted, but a legacy of mindless sofa chat is not the sort of thing that posterity is built on. 

My point chill is that people think of Phil as naturally innocent cos he's Britain's Nicest Man (TM) and when he came out in 2020 all the news coverage was feeling sorry for him and how stunning and brave he'd been. Zero fvcks were given for the wife he'd deceived for years and (as was rumoured then and confirmed now) cheated on with a teenage runner .

Whereas Spacey just looks like a creepy wrongun so was instantly cast as a pervert and had his career trashed overnight 

I guess it is kind of happening to Phil now 

My point chill is that people think of Phil as naturally innocent cos he's Britain's Nicest Man (TM) and when he came out in 2020 all the news coverage was feeling sorry for him and how stunning and brave he'd been. Zero fvcks were given for the wife he'd deceived for years and (as was rumoured then and confirmed now) cheated on with a teenage runner .

Whereas Spacey just looks like a creepy wrongun so was instantly cast as a pervert and had his career trashed overnight 

well that’s because spacey was publicly accused of abuse by anthony rapp (at a time when rapp was 14), whereas schofield came out as gay

quite obviously if the runner had accused phil of abusing him when he was 14 he wouldn’t have been called stunning and brave (even if he subsequently tried to come out like spacey did)

Obviously it's a grey area and we don't know the full ins and outs of what's happened but if Phil knew this guy from the age of 12, got him a job in TV and then went into a relationship with him then that's starting to look a bit groomy and dodgy to me 

 

This is getting seriously murky and it's clear loads of people knew about it.  

Wouldn't surprise me if there is a 6am knock at some point in the next couple of weeks, followed by a requirement to attend the local police station for a video recorded interview without coffee or biscuits.  

I doubt he was stupid enough to break the law. He must have know that the good old days when you could get away with noncing were over. It looks like he may have befriended the (then) boy before he was 16, and bided his time until he was legal, probably having several countdown w@nks in anticipation of the glorious day arriving.

"and this is without any evidence of abuse being covered up, which is completely different - it’s not the job of the media (or let alone someone’s employer!) to out someone for having a consensual, legal affair"

 

These aren't the only 2 options. Something doesn't have to be illegal for it to be a problem. He had an affair. That's not ok. He has been lying about his conduct. That's not ok.

Separate to this, lots of people and organisations enable predators, and it must be our goal to better protect chidren and young adults in the peak of cognitive development from predators. For example, lots of solicitors were acting on behalf of Weinstein, to silence victims. Who would call such solicitors ethical? Who would approve of their conduct, regardless of whether it's illegal, or not? 

Let's see what comes out, but there are a number of things that may, or may not, be problematic here:

  • Was a child/early adult groomed?
  • Why did an almost-elderly man pursue a relationship with a young adult where there was a clear power imbalance in his favour?
  • Why did an almost-elderly man pursue a relationship with a young adult in the workplace?
  • Did said almost-elderly man offer the young adult workplace opportunities?
  • Did ITV staff cover up unethical conduct in the workplace?
  • Did ITV staff turn a blind eye to unethical conduct in the workplace?
  • Why was Schofield lying about what went on?
  • What happened in ITV after Dan Wootton contacted them about this in 2019?

It's likely many, many people enabled this conduct. All should be held to account.

well tbh i don’t give a tug if he was having an affair rumpole and i don’t really care if he was lying about it (you sort of have to) - that’s between him and his wife and has nothing to do with me

i also don’t really care if he was sleeping with a co-worker as long as it was fully consensual (and i do appreciate the power dynamics at play could complicate that)

i agree of course if he was grooming or abusing a child there’s questions that need to be asked and answered

(and i’m going to skip your bizarre “young adult” distinction as i don’t think even you are implying someone can’t be in a relationship before the age of 25)

Why must you call it bizarre, instead of simply asking why I used it, since you obviously don't understand why we distinguish young adulthood cognitively? The issue is with your lack of awareness solely.

Why must you call it bizarre, instead of simply asking why I used it
 

because it’s an incredibly boring meme that has caught on recently in anti-trans circles as us republicans make the move from restricting trans healthcare for kids (their stated concern) to restricting trans healthcare for everyone (their actual goal)

it’s also nonsense - what does it mean to say a brain is “fully developed”? our brains are developing all the time, you can’t mean people of 24 are unable to consent to relationships or medical treatment (unless the treatment is trans healthcare i guess!)

here:

https://slate.com/technology/2022/11/brain-development-25-year-old-mature-myth.html

Not interested in clickbait. As I have told you many times. It's valueless that you type things into google, you then advocate as useful, based upon understanding nothing at all.

The brain is in cognitive decline from around 25ish onwards. You don't care about factual content.

I am not sure there is any kind of presumption of vulnerability in a young adult. Power imbalances involving Philip Schofield and his carrots of Morning TV celebrity world are not sufficiently powerful imo. 

 

 

 

It's not really. Chill is simply anti-science and anti-female. He cloaks it in trans, but you can see he doesn't even understand that topic, nor what it could mean should someone express they are trans. Hence the constant reaching for "Oh but that's just what they said to the black people/gay people/disabled/Michael Barrymore!".

I have this horrible vision of a green room and Schofield in one of those make up chairs with his trousers down inviting a young runner to show how grateful he is to Uncle Philip…

sails has a lot of sub/dom fantasies i’m sure davos

sails - what comes to mind when you think about wills seeing kate in that see through dress at the fashion show when she was 19? 
 

something smutty i bet!

Well apparently it’s spelled differently:

noun: gofer

  1. a person who runs errands, especially on a film set or in an office; a dogsbody.

 

but the joke stands. Hope the dude isn’t called Gordon.

"Is there a lot more to it than was initially released or has it got to do with the brother and PS being in cahoots in some kind of ring?"

Bit surprised at this OB given your (understandable) extreme sensitivity over lurid libels being repeated against a certain other group of people.

He's gay! There is a story about him! It can't just be the story, he must be in an incestuous paedophile ring! Um... no it's probably just the story.

I also like Rumpole's new tactic.

Someone says or decides something he disagrees with. Decision tree:

They are under 25 ----------> their brain is still developing.

They are over 25 ------------> their brain is in decline.

They are 25 ----------> oh fook the manufacturers didn't think about this when they designed the algorithm.

So how are itv supposed to keep up the pretense they never KNEW?. Clebs are saying they knew within 5 mins of him being on set he was gay and in a relationship with the runner.

I'm saying Holly and the show won't survive. I can't believe the runner isn't holed up somewhere either accepting bids on his story or having done a deal spilling his beans to a tabloid hack.