01 June 2023 , 22:37
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Phillip Schofield has explained what drove he and Holly Willoughby apart as the former close friends, who previously went on family holidays together, no longer speak.
The ex- This Morning presenting-duo received a huge backlash last year when their appeared to skip the queue to see the late Queen lying-in-state.
Phillip says he knew the incident was a bad idea and claimed the pair are now forever associated with "queue jumping".
He said: "I don’t ever throw anyone under the bus, but I have a very good instinct for these things and I knew it was a bad thing to do. But there is no reason that the justification that was given to me, shouldn’t have been true."
“There was no jumping of the queue. We went and spoke to everyone in the queue. We went out and met everyone in the queue then walked all the way around the building, and went into the press centre with your accreditation," Phillip recalled.
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Queuegate did not drive Phillip and Holly apart (ITV)"That got messed up because the production team didn’t want to give either of our emails out, so they used work emails which obviously didn’t match up with who we are," he told The Sun.
Despite the controversy, Phillip explained it was the conviction of his paedophile brother Timothy that led to Holly distancing herself from her former This Morning co-host.
In the interview, he claims to have lost his "best friend" and insisted Holly did not know about his romance with a younger colleague.
He reached out to her in one of the first texts he sent to apologise for lying after the news broke but Holly did not reply to his message.
Phillip rejected the idea that he had a "feud" with Holly but says he understands that she needed to "take a step back" after his brother was convicted and imprisoned.
Speaking about his affair with a younger male colleague, Phillip explained his friendship with the runner started when the man was 20 before admitting he is still friends with his former colleague.
Phillip explained his relationship with his younger colleague became more than just friends after a "consensual moment" in his dressing room in 2017.
He insisted he did "not groom" the younger colleague at This Morning that he had an affair with, as he addressed the scandal in his first interview since admitting to cheating on his wife.