To think Phillip schofield scandal is homophobia?

[ivfregret]

Have I missed something in that the guy Philip had the affair with was not a minor?

He was a minor when they met, as was Cheryl Cole and Liam Payne for example and no one has anything bad to say about that relationship.

I'm not sticking up for Philip and really dislike him, and also think even if the runner was above the age of consent is most definitely questionable behaviour but I can't help think of it was a heterosexual affair it would not be treated in the same way?

I think the thing is, even a ruined career and financial repercussions weren’t a deterrent to PS. He assumed, like so many powerful / arrogant men, that he’d always be able to get away with it and that everyone around him would be silent and toe the line.

I mean, his career is now in tatters - anyone else could have foreseen that. But not him, apparently. It wasn’t enough to give him any sort of pause for thought.

Spot on.

Exactly. It pisses me off the Schofield is paying people to protect his reputation online. That’s the only reason I can think of why people would try to close down these conversations. Enjoy the cash and hope it never happens to one of your kids.

Apparently all that stuff about him moving out of their house was wrong. He said something like 'Where did you get that from? Oh, the papers, of course.' He did indeed buy a new London home, but only to be nearer work for some of the time, as he had been doing in the flat they're now selling (and, we now know, he'd been doing a lot more besides, there). It seems that they're not only still married, but still living together as much as before. BIZARRE doesn't even begin to describe her attitude. What's in it for her?

Maybe they’re friends - I’ve tended to assume she knew before most that he is gay

And the other thing is, wealthy arrogant men just assume they’ll be believed. Certainly over some young nobody.

All PS had to say was ‘he’s lying - I’m telling the truth’ and everyone believed him. Innocent until proven guilty.

It’s true of abusers everywhere. They’re inevitably more powerful than their victim, so when the victim speaks up, the abuser says they’re lying and they’re believed.

Rapists in court - ‘she’s lying, I believed we were having consensual sex’. That’s all it takes to plant ‘reasonable doubt’ in the minds of a judge/jury, and they’re off Scot-free. That’s why - alongside there never being any witnesses - it’s virtually impossible to secure a rape conviction.

Abusers know this full well and they use it to their absolute full advantage.

‘Innocent until proven guilty’, a crucial cornerstone of most Western democracies’ justice systems.

Just such a shame that it enables many, many people guilty of profoundly damaging crimes to get away with them entirely.

I’m surprised that it’s bigger than you expected. What do you think is appropriate for someone who has been presenting for over 40 years to have met a child who wasn’t even a teenager, remained in contact (grooming), got him a job somewhere that he held immense power, enhanced his job role (a new or unqualified runner would not be expected to interview the lead presenter etc), had sex with him when he was a teenager, dumped him when the man (now in his very young twenties) fell in love, got him paid off and moved away, gagged him with a NDA and lied to everyone about it?

He had no intention of helping him build his career , he just wanted to shag him , order him to his house on thuesday until he turned too old for him then dump. Hes far too narcissistic to really help someone build a successful career, MM probably isn't the only one I bet there's others he done this too. He's absolutely disgusting.

@Idontpostmuch She could have divorced him and got a good settlement and had a great lifestyle, while remaining friends if that’s what she wanted. I just can’t understand staying married to someone when the marriage is clearly a smoke screen. The whole thing seems like she’s mesmerised by him and just wants to be in his orbit.

@ayo00 i think your spot on. It was all games to him.

I agree. People are allowed to conduct their relationships/marriages any way they please. As long as it's within the law.

YABU. Please don’t equate grooming and paedophilia with homosexuality. PS is a n0ncey creep, and it’s not because he’s gay.

All of this.

gagged him with a NDA

How do you know he was gagged by an NDA? Who has said that? The same people who said there were injunctions and superinjunctions? Which in reality never existed.

It’s true that pip denied any injunction in his statement

the reason I was surprised is because I genuinely thought the press would have printed the whole story two years ago

so something doesn’t add uo

unless it was MM who got an injunction (obviously not funded by himself)

Because the press are being very coy on what they say about him

Yes crazy analogy. I hate it when people 'compare apples and pears'.

Spot on.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-65780307

His previous revelation in 2020 was he was gay, and not a chickenhawk.

Last week, it was he was in an "unwise but not illegal" relationship - with a kid he pursued from the age of fifteen.

I'm sure he doesn't see what he does as grooming - chatting up schoolboys on snapchat, etc - but then he is an entitled spoilt celebrity.

That kid was vulnerable and he offered him an in to a career in tv. Most adults can see where that is wrong - and those like him only apologise when caught.

In the immortal words of Mandy Rice-Davies, well, he would say that, wouldn’t he?

He’s behaved in a way that wouldn’t even occur to most people, let alone be a way they would want to behave.

Even if we reject the word ‘grooming’ we’re still left with someone behaving in a way that’s anathema to most.

Don't care whether he's gay, he is a despicable liar.

On the face of it, he has groomed a vulnerable person, and I think that's morally reprehensible whether it's legal or not.

I also think he could have been described as sleazy rather than a groomer, had it been a teenage girl rather than teenage boy. I don't think people would have approved, but they tone of some of the comments would be slightly different. And that difference is probably due to existing homophobia.

watching news and hes headline news in the Scum newspaper - saying he is not a groomer.

And apparently there’s a bbc interview with amol rajan.

The interviews , the crux of it is ' I was just helping someone ' I was unwise , but not a groomer. Of course he would say this.
It now depends if people believe him or not and I would suggest that a high proportion of people won't , especially as his own brother is in prison and all those photos of them together and the general time lines of how they met.
This interview is just damage limitation.
I'd be interested to know if the man involved was paid off by ITV or by PS ( if it's true that he maybe received hush money)

Agreed all this