Jeremy Clarkson: I’ve by no means seen a witch-hunt just like the Schofield saga
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eremy Clarkson stated he finds the criticism of Phillip Schofield over his secret affair with a youthful male colleague “weird” and has “never seen a witch hunt like it”.
Writing in The Sunday Times, Clarkson stated he doesn’t know Schofield and has “no skin in the fight”, however wrote in regards to the outrage that has adopted Schofield’s saga.
“He maintains that his lover was over the age of consent when their relationship became physical, but that hasn’t silenced the howls of disgust,” Clarkson stated.
“And I find that weird. We casually roll our eyes when we hear that Leonardo DiCaprio’s new girlfriend is three and we even nod appreciatively when we learn that the age gap between Al Pacino and his pregnant girlfriend is 54 years.”
Clarkson stated he has by no means seen a “witch hunt” just like the one which has gone after the previous This Morning host.
“Everyone who’s ever walked past him in the street must be sacked as well. And those who paid his wages or sat next to him in the studio must be hauled into televised committees so that bramble bushes can be inserted into their bottoms,” Clarkson added.
“I’ve never seen a witch-hunt like it, and what baffles me most of all is that, as things stand, no crime has been committed.
“I don’t know him at all well and have no skin in the game, but it seems to me he is only guilty of being what he said he was: gay.”
He added that the general public will probably be subjected to “endless conversations” about responsibility of care and the way individuals on This Morning have been “routinely ignored when they made impassioned cries for help”.
Clarkson went on to say he didn’t consider ITV chief government Dame Carolyn McCall or the director of tv would have been conscious of the affair.
On Saturday, LGBT rights campaigner Peter Tatchell stated the outrage in opposition to Schofield has “more than a whiff of homophobia” to it.
The former Labour politician stated the pair’s relationship had been “cast as sordid and abusive” whereas different high-profile heterosexual relationships with important age variations had not been met with such outrage.
“There was never such a massive hue and cry over relationships with much younger women by Leonardo Di Caprio, Al Pacino and Peter Stringfellow,” Tatchell stated.
Schofield advised The Sun that he and his former lover had met when the person was 15 and he was “maybe” in his mid-50s, however added that the affair started after the person began working at ITV and had been “consensual”.