Phillip Schofield spent 21 years on ITV’s This Morning sofa. It took six days after leaving for the full truth to come out — and when it did, it cost him everything.
In May 2023, Schofield admitted to a secret affair with a younger male colleague at This Morning, carried on during his marriage and hidden from his employers, his family, and his agents. He never named the person publicly. UK tabloids, including The Sun and the Daily Mail, have widely reported the man to be Matthew McGreevy — a Manchester-born actor and former ITV production runner. McGreevy has not confirmed or denied this, and has made no public statement on the matter.
Here is what is confirmed, what is alleged, and what two official investigations actually found.
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Who Is Matthew McGreevy?
Matthew McGreevy was born on 21 March 1996 in Manchester, alongside his twin sister Lizzie. He studied theatre at Loreto Sixth Form College and began his acting career with credits including The Sparticle Mystery (2011), In the Flesh, The Mill, Banana, and Harriet’s Army.
He later moved into television production, working as a runner and production assistant at ITV. Since his name became linked to the Schofield story in 2023, he has closed all his social media accounts and has not spoken publicly.
How Schofield and McGreevy Are Said to Have Met
Schofield confirmed in his BBC interview with journalist Amol Rajan in June 2023 that he first met the younger man at a drama school talk, when the man was 15 years old. Reports have consistently linked this to the 2Faced Theatre Company in Holmfirth, where Schofield served as a patron.
The confirmed employment timeline, taken directly from ITV’s own official statement, runs as follows:
| Year | Age | What Happened |
|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 19 | Work experience at This Morning — arranged with Schofield’s assistance |
| 2016 | 20 | Hired as a full production runner/PA on This Morning |
| 2019 | 23 | Promoted to Loose Women — confirmed as merit-based, unconnected to Schofield |
| July 2021 | 25 | Left ITV via a standard employment exit agreement |
Schofield confirmed in his BBC interview that any sexual contact between the two began only after the man turned 20 and had been working on the show for a few months.
What Schofield Publicly Admitted
On 26 May 2023, six days after announcing his departure from This Morning, Schofield released a statement through the Daily Mail:
“I did have a consensual on-off relationship with a younger male colleague at This Morning. Contrary to speculation, 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:
“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.”
In his subsequent BBC interview, Schofield confirmed the first sexual encounter took place in his dressing room at ITV, and that it occurred four or five times over the following months. He was emphatic that there was no sexual contact before the man was 20.
He denied grooming. He denied issuing a non-disclosure agreement, stating: “Did I make him sign an NDA? No, absolutely not.” He confirmed he was personally paying for independent lawyers to represent the younger man, and that both legal teams had approved the description of the relationship as consensual.
To The Sun he said: “I absolutely know, there is no question, I did a bad thing. Unprofessional. My biggest regret was getting into a relationship at work.”
ITV’s Investigation — What Two Years of Inquiry Found
ITV commissioned King’s Counsel Jane Mulcahy of Blackstone Chambers to conduct a full external review following Schofield’s resignation. Published in December 2023, her report covered interviews with 48 people — senior and junior ITV staff, former employees, and on-screen talent.
Key findings from the Mulcahy review:
- Only one person out of 48 had any actual knowledge of the affair before May 2023 — and did not report it to management
- ITV made “considerable efforts” to uncover the truth following The Sun’s first report in December 2019, but could not do so because both men repeatedly denied any relationship
- The younger man’s promotion to Loose Women in 2019 was entirely merit-based and had nothing to do with Schofield
- The financial agreement when Person X left ITV in July 2021 was a standard employment exit agreement with a whistleblowing carve-out — not a gagging order
- Mulcahy found no evidence of a toxic culture at This Morning for the period under review
- Schofield declined to participate in the review due to what was described as “risk to his health”
ITV’s own legal team separately confirmed that the younger man had been questioned about the relationship no fewer than 12 times — formally and informally — and denied it on every occasion.
Parliament Stepped In
ITV chief executive Dame Carolyn McCall was called before the Culture, Media and Sport (CMS) Committee at Westminster in June 2023, alongside head of media Kevin Lygo and general counsel Kyla Mullins.
McCall told MPs the relationship was “deeply inappropriate” because of the “imbalance of power” between a senior presenter and a junior production runner.
The committee subsequently wrote to McCall describing parts of ITV’s submitted evidence as “contradictory and inconsistent” — specifically challenging Lygo’s account of whether Schofield resigned voluntarily or was effectively forced out by the broadcaster.
The Professional Consequences
The fallout from Schofield’s admission was immediate and wide-reaching:
- YMU, his talent agency of 35 years, dropped him within 48 hours
- The Prince’s Trust removed him as an ambassador
- Holly Willoughby, his co-host of 14 years, publicly stated he had lied to her face when she asked him directly if the affair rumours were true — she said it had been “very hurtful” to discover the lie
- Dr Ranj Singh, This Morning‘s former resident doctor, said he had made an official complaint about bullying at the show and felt he was subsequently managed out for raising it
- Eamonn Holmes described Schofield as “a narcissist and a bully at the centre of the toxicity”
- From October 2023, ITV introduced a mandatory disclosure policy requiring every worker at the network — including freelancers, contractors, and apprentices — to declare any personal relationship with a colleague
Holly Willoughby herself left This Morning in October 2023, months after Schofield’s departure, following a separate kidnap plot targeting her.
Schofield’s Mental Health and TV Return
In September 2024, Schofield made his first television appearance since the scandal via Channel 5’s Cast Away — spending ten days alone on a remote island off Madagascar, filming himself without a crew.
On the show, he revealed he had come close to taking his own life in the period following his ITV exit, stopped only by a conversation with his daughter Molly. He described the period as “as dark as it is possible to get.”
He also said he believed the public reaction would have been significantly smaller had the affair involved a woman, telling the camera: “Another TV presenter or two might have done exactly the same thing. The difference is they’re heterosexual.”
His daughter Molly, who left YMU to manage him directly, was central to his decision to return to screens.
Where Things Stand in 2026
Phillip Schofield has not returned to mainstream television since Cast Away. Matthew McGreevy has maintained total public silence, and his connection to the affair remains officially unconfirmed — Schofield named no one, and ITV referred to the individual throughout all official proceedings only as “Person X.”
What changed permanently is the structure of how ITV operates. The Mulcahy review, the parliamentary scrutiny, and the public fallout together produced concrete policy shifts inside one of Britain’s biggest broadcasters — shifts that now govern how relationships between talent and production staff are managed, disclosed, and monitored.
The relationship at the centre of all of it? Confirmed by one man, denied in its details by official investigations, and never spoken about by the other.
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