Phillip Schofield was blindsided by Jimmy Savile as he recalls their encounters

Phillip Schofield says he was blindsided by Jimmy Savile 's heinous crimes.

The 58-year-old This Morning presenter has released an explosive new memoir, Life's What You Make It, that gives readers an insight into his family life throughout the years.

In the book, Phillip recalled his brief encounters with the paedophile, admitting "there wasn't one hint of who he really was".

The BBC entertainer - who died in 2011 - spent decades grooming, molesting and raping children.

And though Phil, along with the rest of the world, found out about the disgusting and unforgivable crimes Savile had committed to children only after his passing, Phil made it clear that any good opinions he had of him were erased.

Writing in his book, he recalled meeting the disgraced presenter several times throughout his career, with their last meeting being at a launch of a new cruise liner, which Phil attended with wife Steph.

Phillip said Savile took great interest in his career, and went on to gush over his wife Steph to him, saying he was proud Phil had "done so well".

A little while after their brief exchange, Jimmy had died.

He recalled: "I tweeted my sadness at his passing. It is the only tweet I have ever retrospectively searched for.

"When it became clear how he had behaved all of those years, I scrolled back for hours to find it so that I could delete it."

He added: "In any of the brief times I had contact with him, there wasn’t one hint of who he really was, from either him or anyone I met.

"I just wish that, back then, victims had been believed or had felt they had enough support to speak up against this monster, who was hiding in plain sight, and that ‘possibly Britain’s most predatory sex offender’ had not died before he was brought to justice."

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