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ITV bosses face further questions about what they knew of Phillip Schofield’s affair with a This Morning colleague after claims emerged that the younger lover received a financial settlement from the broadcaster.

The Daily Mail has been told that he was given a payment following the end of the on-off relationship, which Schofield described as ‘unwise but not illegal’.

ITV have repeatedly declined to comment on the alleged pay-off or deny it. There were no comments from a representative of the presenter, who quit the channel on Friday after he revealed to the Daily Mail that he had lied about the affair to our sister paper, The Mail on Sunday.

But a source claims that the money was handed to the man, who, after he declared his love for Schofield at an awards ceremony in January 2020, was shunted to another of the network’s daytime programmes.

Insiders at ITV say that bosses at some level must have known about any payment as someone senior would have been required to sign it off.

One said: ‘There have been numerous pay-offs at ITV and they have always had to be arranged and sanctioned by people of some seniority.’

The claims come as pressure has increased on the broadcaster’s chief executive Dame Carolyn McCall, director of television Kevin Lygo and head of daytime Emma Gormley to speak out about what they knew.

One source at the channel said: ‘This is unravelling fast and there is no evidence to suggest it will come to an end any time soon.

‘There are a lot of people out there who feel wronged by ITV and they now have the confidence to have their say. The house of cards appears to be collapsing, it is anybody’s guess where this ends now.’

And former This Morning presenter Eamonn Holmes made the situation even more uncomfortable for ITV after he accused its bosses of orchestrating a ‘total cover-up’ of Schofield’s affair with his younger lover, saying those in authority ‘had to know’ about the secret relationship.

The pair met when Schofield was in his 50s and giving a talk to a theatre school. At that time, his future-lover was 15 and keen to make a career in the TV industry.

He moved down to London aged 18 and began working at This Morning, before striking up the secret relationship with the presenter.

In an interview on GB News on Monday evening, Holmes, labelled Schofield, 61, a ‘chief narcissist’ who would ‘hit the town’ on Thursdays for ‘playtime’ with the young man.

He claimed Schofield’s lover would be ferried between the presenter’s central London flat and the studios in taxis paid for by the network.

Holmes said: ‘I didn’t know but I’ve subsequently found out from a very, very good source, because he would arrive much earlier in the morning than I would for the programme, that he was delivered from Phillip’s London home.

‘Usually on a Friday morning, because Thursday was playtime when he and Phillip would hit the town and then he obviously stayed overnight. There are records to show that he was brought in the next day separately in cars paid for by ITV.’

Asked whether the management would had to have known, Holmes replied: ‘Unless Phillip paid the bills separately, but it would still have to go through the accounts office that they would have seen that and known that.’

Holmes, 63, also claims he approached senior management who worked for Ms McCall to tell them about Schofield’s relationship with the young production assistant.

He said: ‘I had gone to the senior bosses at ITV, people who worked for Carolyn McCall, the chief executive in November 2019, with the story of Phillip having this inappropriate relationship with the young man, and had urged them to investigate because why, at the very least, would you not investigate?

‘I wasn’t saying that Phillip was guilty of anything. I was saying you should launch an investigation.’

Sources close to Schofield hit back at Holmes, saying: ‘If Eamonn Holmes wants to be that cruel to someone in Phillip’s position then that I think says more about Eamonn than Phillip.’

ITV is still refusing to give the Daily Mail any further detail of an investigation it insists took place. Sources close to the younger man say it did not carry one out.

On Saturday, ITV released a statement which said ‘both parties were questioned and both categorically and repeatedly denied the rumours as did Phillip’s then agency YMU’.

ITV will not say whether the investigation was independent and external or who conducted it and when.

The scandal is threatening to topple This Morning, the daytime programme which was launched in 1988 and hosted by Richard Madeley and Judy Finnegan.

One source on the show said yesterday: ‘There are already conversations taking place between staff about how they are worried that things are going to have to change and where that leaves their jobs.

‘It is a deeply worrying time but nobody is under the illusion that the show can stay the same. It has to be rebranded because so much trust has gone.’

It comes as a series of photos of emerged of Schofield’s younger lover giving his co-host Holly Willoughby, 42, a kiss on the cheek at the National Television Awards (NTAs) at the O2 Arena in 2020.

This was where Schofield’s ex-lover declared his lover for the former presenter, according to former ITV producer Cristo Foufas.

Mr Foufas described an ‘incident’ at the awards on January 28, 2020 when Schofield’s lover stunned his colleagues by ‘declaring his love for Phil’.

The photos show the man approaching Holly and her husband Daniel Baldwin, sharing a few words, before jumping in a waiting cab. 

Schofield does not take part in the conversation and is seen vaping nearby with his then wife Stephanie Lowe.  

In more footage that has emerged, an extraordinary Snapchat video shows the former broadcaster partying with the young man 34 years his junior and his best friend Simon Schofield.

In the clip from March 2017, Schofield begins by sharing a snap of his pint of beer before dragging on a shisha. He then giggles: ‘I can’t get a tune out of these bagpipes’.

Schofield reportedly met his future lover while he was at stage school in 2012.

In 2016, he was around 18 or 19, he landed a job on This Morning. The shisha video was filmed a year later when the young man is believed to be around 20 while Schofield was 55.

It is thought they were in a relationship at the time the video was recorded.  

Just ten days later Schofield wrote an emotional Instagram post revealing he was gay, before speaking about it moments later to Eamonn Holmes and his wife, Ruth Langsford. 

Last night Holmes spoke to the ‘lovely’ younger man who he said was a ‘really good talented fella’ but added that life had been ‘tough’ for him. 

 Willoughby is due to return to the show on Monday in what will be her first appearance since Schofield was ousted. She is expected to be joined by her friend Alison Hammond.