Phillip Schofield denies he's launching a TV comeback - 'I don't want to do it anymore'

Despite appearing on screen again for the first time in 16 months Phillip Schofield insists he is not launching a career comeback.

Speaking on the island he insists he has no ambitions to return to a sofa style show like This Morning. He said: "You expect your life to follow a path? I honestly thought, you know. I'm going to die on live television, hopefully at 93. But then you know it. It's gone. And it's not the way you planned it to be. It's not the life you expected."

Later in the programme he refers to the trip to the remote island as "the last challenge". He then adds: "Look I love telly. I've got telly in my bones but I won't sit on a sofa again. I'm not going to do that again. There are people I won't work with again. Some people I won't work with again. I've been hurt so badly by that sort of telly, that you get to a point where you think 'I don't want to do it anymore'."

The comments will surprise many people who view this series as his attempt to return to the TV industry. He quit his job at ITV in May last year after admitting lying about an affair with a young male colleague on This Morning. He described the affair as "unwise but not illegal" before his exit.

As part of the second episode of his new Channel 5 series Phillip Schofield: Cast Away, the former TV host says his love for TV has been tainted by how he left ITV and he is angry at how he was treated. Schofield started a conversation by the fire by saying that when he started at the BBC as a booking clerk at 19, he first was able to go to Television Centre, where ITV's This Morning was later filmed, and he "loved being there".

He added: "When what happened to me happened to me, it screwed up my favourite building in the world, and it pretty well blew away all those happy memories, and suddenly the place became hostile to me, and that was heartbreaking. And the people who did it to me know, they know how important that building was to me. They know that when you throw someone under a bus, you've got to have a really bloody good reason to do it. Brand, ambition is not good enough. It's not a good enough reason to throw someone under a bus."

Schofield and Holly Willoughby worked side by side for 14 years on This Morning but have not been seen together since he left the show or shared comments or photos on social media, a sharp contrast to their previous behaviour where they would regularly go out and eat at each other's houses.

In further comments which could be about Holly or other This Morning staff members, shamed Schofield says: "It is hard to come to terms with the fact that the people you thought you knew were not the people that you knew. They had completely different agendas." He insists he doesn't need "200 fake friends" possibly referring to many people within the TV industry who no longer speak to him and now has 10-15 friends he "would die for".

Warming to the attack on old friends and acquaintances at ITV, Schofield went on to say he doesn't care what the reaction is when people view the programme. He adds: "The good thing is, when you do a programme like this and you do it just for yourself, you have nothing to lose. They've taken pretty much everything. Reputation, dignity, legacy, everything away."

*Phillip Schofield: Cast Away begins airs at 9pm on Monday on Channel 5, and will continue on Tuesday and Wednesday at the same time.

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