Sir Elton John says response to Phillip Schofield affair was ‘totally homophobic’
Sir Elton John has said the response to Phillip Schofield‘s affair with a younger male colleague was “totally homophobic“.
The This Morning presenter saw his career in television come crashing down last month after he admitted lying about an “unwise but not illegal” affair with a runner, then in his early twenties.
Schofield, who was 54 when he says the affair began, resigned from ITV and was dropped by his agent in the wake of the scandal.
Sir Elton told the Radio Times: “I feel that the Phillip Schofield thing has been totally homophobic… if it was a straight guy in a fling with a young woman, it wouldn’t even make the papers.”
The musician and pioneering LGBT+ rights activist also expressed fears that progress towards equality is “going pear shaped” in the US, citing violence and “disgraceful” laws targeting LGBT+ people enacted in some US states.
He continued: “We seem to be going backwards. And that spreads. It’s like a virus that the LGBTQ+ movement is suffering.
“I don’t like it at all. It’s a growing swell of anger and homophobia.”
Schofield, who came out as gay in 2021, has alleged that homophobia motivated criticism towards him and misleading claims about the relationship that spread online – noting the differing response to actor Leonardo DiCaprio’s relationships with women in their early twenties.
He told The Sun earlier this month: “Attraction is attraction. It’s no different in the gay world as it is in the heterosexual world or in the lesbian world.
“There shouldn’t be a difference. This is where homophobia comes in… there’s a difference. It’s accepted by Leonardo DiCaprio, it’s not accepted if it’s in the gay world.”
Schofield first met the young man when he visited his drama school aged 15 and had subsequently given him guidance on working in the TV industry – but he maintains they did not have any kind of relationship until years later, when the man was 20 and employed as a runner on This Morning.
There has been no public complaint from the man, who also allegedly denied the relationship when ITV first investigated the claims.
LGBT+ rights campaigner Peter Tatchell has previously claimed “explicit” anti-gay prejudice motivated false claims spreading about Schofield on social media, while media coverage had “more than a whiff of homophobia”.
He said: “Phillip Schofield’s younger partner was not a child. He was 20 years old when they began a consenting sexual relationship. The young man has made no complaint against Schofield. Yet people claim, without evidence, that he must have been abused. That is speculation and presumption, not fact.
“Schofield has not committed a crime. He lied to his employer and work colleagues and that is wrong but it is not a criminal offence. It is a matter between Schofield and his fellow employees, agents and bosses at ITV. It’s nobody else’s business.”
Grand Tour host Jeremy Clarkson is also among those who have publicly questioned the so-called “witch hunt” that Schofield said left him feeling suicidal.
Mr Clarkson wrote in The Times earlier this month: “I’ve never seen a witch-hunt like it, and what baffles me most of all is that, as things stand, no crime has been committed. I don’t know him at all well and have no skin in the game, but it seems to me he is only guilty of being what he said he was: gay.”
Piers Morgan also concluded that “unless Schofield’s ex-lover contradicts his version of events… then it’s time to stop this relentless persecution of a guy who’s lost everything and looks right on the edge to me”.
