Phillip Schofield says Cast Away will be his last TV appearance

Just over 15 months ago, former television presenter Phillip Schofield told the BBC that his career was finished.

He had just left ITV, after admitting to an affair with a younger employee at the company, about which he had lied.

Many had expected Schofield to quit television for good and he subsequently disappeared from the spotlight.

That was until earlier this week, when it was announced he would be taking part in Channel 5’s Cast Away.

The 62-year-old has already filmed the series, where he was stranded on an island near Madagascar for 10 days and forced to fend for himself, finding his own food, water and shelter.

The BBC was given advance viewing of the first two of three episodes.

One of the opening shots of the first episode is Schofield sitting having a family barbecue with his wife Stephanie Lowe and his two daughters Molly and Ruby.

“We’ve seen him at his lowest times, but I’ve been so proud of him,” Molly says.

Interviews with his family are spliced between island scenes, with his sexuality discussed in detail.

During the first episode on the island, Schofield talks about “living your life to the absolute fullest” and still having “the love of my family”, which he says has “never wavered”.

This is discussed in relation to Schofield coming out as gay in February 2020 on Instagram, and then discussing his announcement with his then co-host Holly Willoughby on ITV’s This Morning.

Molly describes his coming out as “very hard for me, very hard for the entire family – mainly my mum of course”, and says that “everything was turned upside down”.

She says that in the time since he came out, things have got a lot better for the family – calling herself the “luckiest person ever” because her parents remain best friends.

Schofield, who presented This Morning from 2009 to 2023, does a lot of reflecting on the island, talking into the camera about his career on the stage and in television, and what it has been like behind the scenes since his public fall from grace.

He says he has gone to the island to empty his “toxicity tanks” and asks that people let him get on “with the quiet life you’ve all given me”.

The presenter says he has only gone out in public to attend to his gravely ill mother since he quit ITV, and admits he considered suicide when things got “dark”.

“I got so, so close, I had everything in place, everything was set up and everything was ready.”

He added: “Molly said, ‘Do you imagine what this would do to us if you actually managed to pull this off? Imagine what would happen. Can you imagine what it would do to me if you did this on my watch?’, and that was just enough to take a step back from the edge.

“I could have been hospitalised. I had the option to be hospitalised, but then I thought, that’s going to get out. So I just raced to the family home and shut the gates.”

Schofield maintains that his affair with a younger male colleague was “unwise but not illegal”, and says, during the second episode, that he “made life tough for the people I love the most”.

He appears to have not moved on entirely from his exit from ITV and media in general, saying: “I’ve been chucked under a bus.

“I could drive the same bus over so many people, but I’m not that sort of person, I never have been.”

Schofield does not name anyone specifically apart from his former management agency, who we know to be YMU, who represented him for more than 30 years.

“I was suicidal, like literally one push and I’m done and they sent me what looked like a cut and pasted text like ‘this time we have to let you go’,” he adds.

He also points the finger at three “cowards” he worked with in TV – “one who never stepped up in queuegate”, “one who never stepped up when I was being battered by that one journalist” and “one [who] is just brand-orientated”.

His “queue” comment references the public backlash he faced when he and Willoughby skipped a queue of up to 20 hours to visit Queen Elizabeth II’s lying-in-state.

As Schofield navigates day four and five on the island, his apparent hunger and lack of shelter appear to take their toll.

Hunting at night for crabs and avoiding being bitten by black widow spiders, he tells the cameras: “I’ll be slammed for this Phillip Schofield mad rant.”

His appearance is changing too, an unkempt beard and dirty clothes a far cry from his polished morning TV look.

“But the thing is, I don’t care any more, this is me having my say as I bow out,” he adds.

Filming himself from different angles, he says he has “nothing to lose” by appearing on Cast Away, as “they’ve taken pretty much everything. Reputation, dignity, legacy, everything”.

“I am loving what I’m finding out about myself, I’m loving every day and when I get on that boat and I leave here, I will know that I did my best and I said my piece,” he adds.