Phillip Schofield talks about his difficult year and his new book Life’s What You Make It 

Virgin Radio

23 Oct 2020, 14:03

It's been an up and down year for many of us, and Phillip Schofield found himself making headlines earlier this year after coming out as gay. 

The much-loved TV host has written a raw and honest memoir called   and it's out now in eBook, audiobook and hardback.

Phillip joined The Chris Evans Breakfast Show with Sky this morning, and talked about the trip he made down to Cornwall, to talk to his Mum.

He recalled:  "I have an incredibly loyal and wonderful driver called Tony who’s been me for years and years and years. Tony’s scraped me up, he knows all of my mates, he knows the ones that are gonna lead me astray. I knew I had to go down to Cornwall, and I knew there’s no way I’m going to concentrate knowing what I’m about to do, so I needed Tony to drive me down to Cornwall, which I know is extravagant in the extreme."

Phillip explained they stopped for fish and chips before continuing to his Mum's house. "She knew I was coming and she knew something was up. She’s got the most beautiful apartment that overlooks Fistral beach, which is my childhood wrapped up in a landscape really.  I sat down and we chatted."

He then shared about a medical issue that had been causing problems: "I have floaters in my eyes which drive me crazy, I don’t talk about them very much but I have done lately because they’re in the book, and loads of people have said me too… They drive me mad, but they're not dangerous in any way. They just drive me mad, especially if they hover over an autocue or something that I'm reading." he explains.

"I said “Mum, I have something to tell you” and she said “Oh right, okay,” I said, “I’m gay”. “Oh thank god!” I just looked at her!" he exclaimed.

"She said “I thought you were going blind!” I said “what the hell do you mean? Why?” he said incredulously, laughing at the memory. "She said “those things in your eyes!” The reaction of everyone in recent times when I told them, they all said “oh thank god, I thought you were seriously ill”

Chris mentioned that some of Phillip's colleagues also thought he was ill because of him losing weight and looking thin on screen. Phillip explained: "I just couldn't eat, I couldn't drink. I described loops in there, of it just going round and round and round in your head. It's so torturing."

He recalls: "The relief of being able to tell people what it was it was actually silencing me in the makeup room. We have such a brilliant atmosphere. There's such a great team, great fun, and we have a laugh every day. Then suddenly I was laughing slightly less, you know, I was getting a bit more serious and I was losing weight and people would say what a wonderful weekend they'd had and "How was my weekend?" I would have just stared into the fire"

Phillip said he had "loops" of constant thoughts about what to do: "What are the consequences? You know, what are the consequences if you don't? So it was that sort of thing. It was weighing up, could I live with this myself and the damage that it was doing to me, knowing the damage that if I didn't live with it just on my own, and I did make it public what it was going to do to my family. And that was the hardest thing."

"I lost me, and I still haven't found me if I'm honest" he explains candidly. "I've tried all the way through this,  writing the book and in the few interviews that I'm doing, to be as honest as I possibly can be. I don't know that I've necessarily found me yet. But it's okay, I think it's okay, for me to look."

He smiles: "I have recently found myself finding it easier to laugh more. It's always funny with Holly Willoughby we always laugh anyway. You think, Oh, that feels nice, it feels nice to laugh, that feels better."

"Finding me, that's the goal for the moment."

is out now in eBook, audiobook, and hardback.