Philip Schofield interview on BBC News/iplayer now.

[JeandeServiette]

Anyone else watching?

I wasn't supposed to be up this early but what the heck.

Every inch of the way - and not even convincingly.

It means that he has managed to coerce/ bully/ manipulate/ wheedle/ persuade (add rest of Thesaurus entries here) his family into letting him have his cake and eat it.

Probably she’s stayed because of her kids. Their dad being gay must have been a shock for them all. Now this cheating whilst married with a man and PS wife must feel awful all over again. I hope she got std checkups and mental health support.

He's lucky he never tried acting, because he was appalling. "Ham" doesn't begin to describe it. Self-serving dross.

He actually did try acting - he was in Joseph and His Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat which helped him make a name for himself. Not questioning the ham description though.

I'm not so sure, they get a lot of flack online about it, apparently even on his own social media, my kids are in their 20's and think its disgusting and I have seen a lot of people with similar views. What she did was disgusting.

Yes, I wondered about that. It would have been a good moment for a follow
Up question. I wonder if Amol is planning some kind of follow up? He challenged nothing in the interview. Maybe he's keeping his powder dry?

Yes but you can't compare to the reaction to PS's affair. This is off the scale and headline news for days on end.

I don't much rate Amol tbh, though he has improved with experience, especially since he's been presenting Today on R4. With this kind of interview you can draw your own conclusions though.

Presumably because PS is more famous in the UK - former national treasure and all that?

PS is in full persecution complex mode, poor me, poor me.
As another poster related upthread, classic abuser/narcissistic behaviour.

I can't imagine many will have sympathy for him, only for his family and the runner.

What I found interesting was that at the very start he was very quiet, fragile seemingly on the edge of tears. But as the interview progressed he became more confident , articulate, bold hand gestures - more like PS the presenter everyone knows but a little more dishevelled looking. And it made me wonder if he was really as broken as he said he was.
But I agree that if he really cares about the guy he should probably lie low and stop talking about. If there's more to come out , this interview will be pointless and if there isn't he's just creating more material for people to speculate about.

I thought that too @Noseylittlemoo , he started off in a whispery voice then definitely got bolder
His ability to answer questions without answering questions was interesting I thought

Yes @ODFODeary quite politician type "answers" to quite a few of the questions.

I noticed the little voice at the beginning. He probably thought it was Oscar worthy but it was terrible acting. His masked slipped badly when he came out with the comment about people sacked from the show speaking out against him.

"The dressing gown of doom" voice from that Twitter screen shot - perfectly sums it up!

I might well be a lone voice, but after watching that interview, I felt really sorry for him.

He’s apologised, admitted he’s done wrong, accepted his career’s fucked. I’d hope the relentless angry mob reporting will stop now.

but there are now so many questions

I felt that too @BriarHare .
I see it from both sides and can understand why people think he's playing the victim card, but from his point of view the level of attack has been pretty off the charts.
I remember watching an Eddie Izzard thing years ago and it was about murderers and saying that we are completely outraged by people who kill one or two people but it reaches a point where with mass murderers we are almost impressed. It feels a bit like that here. What he did was clearly bad but there are many examples of people who did much worse and got so much less grief for it.

That said I'm still confused about why it came out now - I can't make sense of that and how it tallies with the rift with HW story. And I wonder if it's that that's making people think this is just the tip of the iceberg or something.

Anytime things don't quite seem to add up that just fuels the speculation - just get it all out there and let people say what they think and then let it die down.

That said I'm still confused about why it came out now

There is a bigger story. Time will tell whether he manages to suppress it.

He seemed to have perked up in the Sun interview.

More his old self, more combative and I don't fear for his state of mind watching that.

For someone who has 'presented' to the public for 30 years, can they ever really be off 'presenter' mode?

I don't think he is credible as a sincere person in an interview. just isn't possible now.

I'm also unsure why it's all exploded now?
The fling with the runner has been "unofficially" known in the background since the coming out episode, so what's changed?

Part of the reason there is such a big reaction is because we now know for sure he has lied and that despite what he says his over-the-top coming out episode was about deflection. Many will think he has used this sexuality to deflect responsibility from his misuse of power and grooming of a child. To those who have fought hard for acceptance of gay people, this is a really low thing to do.

I feel very cynical about the coming out. That is the extra layer in this sorry story that has really set it on fire I feel.

I don't know but -

He married someone for decades to cover up his homosexuality
He came out on live national television to cover up a bigger story
He confessed to an affair with a runner to cover up a bigger story
He's threatening suicide on national television to avoid deeper scrutiny

There's major manipulation of the public going on between Phillip Schofield and the media right now. He doesn't want to be looked at too closely and media is colluding with that in return for a bit of cooperation. Whatever has gone on he has used his own family, all his media clout, lawyers, crisis PR management, every dead cat distraction he can throw out there, his own dignity and now national-level emotional blackmail to cover it up.

The tabloids have known he was gay for decades but didn't threaten to out him until they had a bigger story. Whatever it is there is an awful lot of effort going into keeping it secret.

Only, PS is NOT a victim or 'the' victim.
The person he manipulated into sex after grooming him, abusing his position of power and influence, getting him a job, promises of a media career is the victim. PS and his child abusing brother have too many weird, similar behaviour patterns for this to be an isolated incident.