Days before Phillip Schofield quit This Morning in May 2023, the show’s boss Martin Frizell was seen looking morose in ITV’s canteen.
Frizell seemed a far cry from the usually loud and gregarious figure who staff knew as a ‘hands-on’ editor: he would spend the entire programme watching from the gallery and giving orders to his staff to ensure the daytime series was perfect.
But that day, he was ‘like someone who could be about to burst into tears,’ according to one staff member at the channel.
And who could blame him? At home he was, unbeknown to his colleagues, having to care for his beloved wife Fiona Phillips as she battled severe Alzheimer’s – and at work he had to deal with the controversial Schofield.
Once upon a time, the two men had been so close that Frizell would ‘take all the bullets fired’ at Schofield, say This Morning staff. But their friendship had collapsed. Frizell was simply fed up of clearing up the presenter’s mess.
Of course, between rumours of inappropriate relationships with staffers and ‘Queuegate’ (when Schofield refused to apologise after he and co-host Holly Willoughby were ushered past mourners to see the late Queen Elizabeth lying in state) there had been much to clear up.
Martin Frizell (right) and Phillip Schofield were once close friends as well as working together
But the breaking point came when it became apparent to Frizell that Schofield had lied to him about his paedophile brother Timothy’s child sex abuse trial.
Schofield had told Frizell the year before that is was he who had shopped his brother to the police after Timothy told him that he and an underage boy had ‘had their time together’.
But at Exeter Crown Court it emerged that in fact the victim’s counsellor had been the one who informed the authorities – not Phillip.
There followed Schofield’s complete downfall: his fall-out with his ‘best friend’ Holly about the same thing, his exit from the show, and finally his confession to the Mail that he had conducted an affair with a much younger member of This Morning staff – much to Frizell’s disgust.
‘It was the end of their friendship,’ said one ITV source. ‘Martin was devastated. For so long Phillip would be going on about what a nightmare his life was’, reveals a This Morning insider. ‘But he should have tried going home to deal with Fiona, whose illness was getting worse. I can’t even begin to imagine what Martin has had to go through day in, day out.
‘Schofield had lied to his friend and boss. It was so hurtful that it would be fair to say it put a dark cloud over [Martin’s] last two years at This Morning.
Fiona Phillips and Frizell have been married since 1997 (pictured in 1999)
Fiona Phillips was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2022. Pictured: The couple in 2016
‘While there will always be difficulties at work, the mess that Phillip made was huge, and for Martin, it was a case of Phil letting him down after decades of friendship. Editing This Morning is hard enough as it is without all of that trouble.
‘Martin always tried to look out for Phil but, in the end, he had his face rubbed in it.’
While show insiders say the arrival in March of Cat Deeley and Ben Shephard to replace Willoughby and Schofield ‘really put a smile on his face’, trying to start afresh while the cloud left by the former presenter’s scandal as been ‘stressful’.
And for Frizell, the ‘Schofield problem’ never went away.
In September, as Frizell was debating his decision to quit This Morning following Fiona’s devastating diagnosis 18 months ago, he was deeply hurt when he found himself in the firing line of his disgraced friend. Schofield lambasted him and two other ITV employees during his appearance on the Channel 5 show Cast Away.
During one episode, he gracelessly blamed three ITV bigwigs for his downfall, calling them the ‘three s***s of showbiz.’
Schofield, 63, told his viewers: ‘There are a lot of amazing people on morning television.
‘There are only three s***s. One of them is a coward who never stepped up in Queuegate.
‘One is a coward, because they never stepped up when I was being battered. And the other is just brand-orientated.’
ITV bosses were so concerned at the effect that the comment would have on Frizell that they asked journalists not to name him (a request that went mostly ignored). For Frizell, insiders knew, was the ‘coward who never stepped up in Queuegate’. The other two were Daytime Managing Editor at ITV, Emma Gormley – and Ms Willoughby herself.
Frizell with Holly Willoughby and Schofield at the TV Choice awards in 2019
While appearing on Channel 5’s Cast Away, Schofield lambasted his former colleagues
‘Imagine having someone saying that about you when your wife has Alzheimer’s. It’s just horrible,’ said a friend of Frizell’s. ‘We all really hope that the end of his reign on This Morning isn’t the overriding memory of his time on there, thanks to be what appears to be a vendetta by Phil.’
When he stepped down on Wednesday after a decade in charge, Frizell, 65, said in a statement: ‘Next year I’m expecting my family priorities to change so I need to free up time for them.
‘I love my team at ITV and will miss them and the thrill of live telly but it’s an always on, 24 hours a day, seven days a week commitment and I won’t be able to do both.’
Indeed, when his TV presenter Fiona, 62, revealed she had dementia, he knew he had to be there for her – something his full-time job would not allow. For the disease had also claimed the lives of her mother and father.
Speaking in July 2023, she said: ‘It’s something I might have thought I’d get at 80. But I was still only 61 years old.’
The presenter said she felt ‘more angry than anything else’, because the disease had already taken such a toll on her family.
As well as needing more time to care for Fiona, Frizell also wants to be around more for the couple’s two sons, Nathaniel, 26, and McKenzie, 22. Both, I’m told, have been ‘absolutely fantastic’ since their mother’s diagnosis, but it has been a difficult time for them too.
Frizell will leave his role next spring – though he insists he will keep working in some capacity.
As for the future of This Morning though, I’m assured it is in safe hands – and Cat and Ben will continue as hosts for the foreseeable future.
For as well as getting Frizell’s seal of approval, Cat is also championed by ITV’s director of television Kevin Lygo. In fact, insiders say it was he who pushed Frizell to hire her, even when it seemed impossible due to her career commitments.
I’m told she is adored by all of ITV’s upper echelons and they hope to see her work more across the channel.
While Frizell’s £155,000-per-year job is to be advertised publicly, I’m told the search for his successor has become a two-horse race between deputy editor Emma Dagnell and associate editor Vivek Sharma.
Former Loose Women executive Dagnell – highly rated by insiders at the broadcaster – is expected to win. Sharma was poached by ITV from the now defunct Channel 5 daytime show Steph’s Packed Lunch, which was regarded by many in the television industry as an unmitigated disaster.
One thing’s for sure: Frizell’s maverick characteristics will be a huge loss to the show. ‘He’s like an old fashioned, mischievous newspaper editor,’ said one former colleague of Frizell’s.
‘He knows everyone, wants to have fun and wants to take risks. They simply don’t make them like him anymore.’