Phillip Schofield has ruled out a return to daytime TV and appeared to take another pop at Holly Willoughby as he spoke of "shedding skin" to become a new person following his island adventure.
In the final episode of Phillip Schofield's Cast Away on Wednesday, the TV host reflects on his life and how it has changed. On his last night in camp he says: "This bonfire will mark my last night on the island. And I hope, the start of a new beginning. You shed all sorts of skins through your life. "There are things that didn't work out. There are there are people that you hoped would be around and you know, then they're not and you shed that skin." He also says: "There's a lot of freedom in not giving a shit. There is. There's a lot of freedom. And say what you want. Do what you want. Honestly, I don't give a sh**. Life is beautiful."
One person he may have hoped would "be around" could be Holly Willoughby. The pair were best friends on and off screen for more than a decade hosting This Morning and Dancing On Ice together. But tensions grew last year and since he left This Morning after an "unwise but not illegal" affair with a younger male colleague, the pair are no longer thought to be friends.
After leaving the island off the coast of Madagascar to return home he says: "I'm not saying I'm done, but you know, never in a million years will I go back to daytime telly. I've lived a hundred TV lives.
"I think the most important thing I'd like anyone to take away would be to say, okay, that's the guy he is. That's what he's like. This is the person that my family sees. This is who I am." In an earlier episode, Phillip says he understands how he has been "lucky" during his more than four decades of TV career until it came to an end in 2023.
"When it came to a sudden very abrupt end, you know one minute you're there and then the next minute you're gone, you know what it feels like to be cancelled," he also said. "It's like the biggest grenade going off in your life, and you know you let people down, you've let yourself down, and it was unwise and (an) unprofessional thing to do, I will be forever sorry, I screwed up, I made a mistake, and I hurt the people around me." However, in another explosive claim about his affair on episode two of the series, he also claimed the relationship would not have mattered if he was not gay, and suggested an affair with a woman would have meant a "pat on the back".
Schofield said: "I think another TV presenter or two might have done exactly the same thing, difference is heterosexual, it's not an unusual thing in the gay world, for there to be a difference in age groups."
* Phillip Schofield Cast Away airs for three nights from Monday September 30 at 9pm on Channel 5, available to stream on My5
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