Piers Morgan

Morgan began to work as a freelance at The Sun in 1988, at this point dropping his double-barrelled name. He told Hunter Davies in December 1994 that he was personally recruited by Sun editor Kelvin MacKenzie to work on the newspaper's show business column "Bizarre", his first high-profile post.[1] Although he was not a fan of pop music, he was considered skilled at self-publicity and became the column's main writer. "I became the Friend of the Stars, a rampant egomaniac, pictured all the time with famous people – Madonna, Stallone, Bowie, Paul McCartney, hundreds of them. It was shameless, as they didn't know me from Adam", he told Davies.[1]

In January 1994, he became editor of the News of the World after being appointed to the job by Rupert Murdoch. Initially an acting editor, he was confirmed in the summer, becoming at 29 the youngest national newspaper editor in more than half a century.[1] In this period, the newspaper led with a series of scoops for which Morgan credited a highly efficient newsdesk and publicist Max Clifford.[25]

Morgan left this post in 1995 shortly after publishing photographs of Catherine Victoria Lockwood, then wife of Charles, Earl Spencer, leaving an addictive disorders clinic in Surrey.[26] This action ran against the editors' code of conduct,[27] a misdemeanour for which the Press Complaints Commission upheld a complaint against Morgan.[27] Murdoch was reported as having said that "the boy went too far"[28] and publicly distanced himself from the story.[29] Fearful of a privacy law action if he had not criticised one of his employees, Murdoch is said to have apologised to Morgan in private.[30][31]

The incident was reported to have contributed to Morgan's decision to leave for the Daily Mirror editorship.[32] Morgan's autobiography The Insider states that he left the News of the World for the Mirror of his own choice. It asserts he was an admirer of former Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher for most of her period of office, making the appointment surprising as the Mirror is a Labour-supporting title.[21]

As editor of the Daily Mirror, Morgan apologised on television for the headline (rendered in upper case) "Achtung Surrender! For You Fritz Ze Euro Championship Is Over" on 25 June 1996, a day before England met Germany in a semi-final of the Euro '96 football championships.[25][33][34][35] The headline was accompanied by an open letter from Morgan parodying Neville Chamberlain's declaration of war on Germany in 1939. "It was intended as a joke, but anyone who was offended by it must have taken it seriously, and to those people I say sorry," he said.[35] Germany won the match and later the championship at Wembley Stadium, London.

A £16 million package of investment in the title was rolled out from January, including the dropping of "Daily" from the masthead in February,[36] which was later reversed. Roy Greenslade wrote in August 1999 that Morgan's editorship "has made a huge difference: his enormous enthusiasm, determination and focus is a major plus".[37]

Morgan was the subject of an investigation in 2000 after Suzy Jagger wrote an article for The Daily Telegraph revealing that he had bought £20,000 worth of shares in the computer company Viglen soon before the Mirror's "City Slickers" column tipped Viglen as a good buy.[38] Morgan was found by the Press Complaints Commission to have breached the Code of Conduct on financial journalism, but kept his job. The "City Slickers" columnists, Anil Bhoyrul and James Hipwell, were both found to have committed further breaches of the Code and were sacked before the inquiry concluded.[39] Further enquiry by the Department of Trade and Industry in 2004 cleared Morgan of any charges.[40] On 7 December 2005, Bhoyrul and Hipwell were convicted of conspiracy to breach the Financial Services Act. During the trial it emerged that Morgan had bought £67,000 worth of Viglen shares, emptying his bank account and investing under his (first) wife's name as well.[41]

The Mirror attempted to move mid-market in 2002, eschewing the more trivial stories of show-business and gossip, and appointed Christopher Hitchens as a columnist, but sales declined.[21][42] In October 2003, journalist and television personality Jeremy Clarkson emptied a glass of water over Morgan during the last flight of Concorde in response to some photographs published in the Mirror.[43] In March 2004, at the British Press Awards, Clarkson punched Morgan three times during another argument.[43] in Campbell v MGN Ltd,[44] the Law Lords in May 2004 found in favour of model Naomi Campbell on privacy grounds after the Mirror had published a photograph of her entering a Narcotics Anonymous clinic. Morgan was critical of the judgement saying it was "a good day for lying, drug-abusing prima donnas who want to have their cake with the media and the right to then shamelessly guzzle with their Cristal champagne."[45][46]

In the wake of the Abu Ghraib torture scandal, Morgan was sacked as editor of the Daily Mirror "with immediate effect" on 14 May 2004, after refusing to apologise to Sly Bailey, then head of Trinity Mirror, for authorising the newspaper's publication of fake photographs.[47] The photos were alleged to show Iraqi prisoners being abused by British Army soldiers from the Queen's Lancashire Regiment.[48] Within days the photographs were shown to be crude fakes. According to official British sources, the photographs were apparently taken in North-West England. Under the headline "SORRY..WE WERE HOAXED", the Mirror responded that it had fallen victim to a "calculated and malicious hoax" and apologised for the publication of the photographs.[49][50] However, Morgan refused to admit that the photographs were faked, and stated that the abuse shown in the photographs is similar to the sort of abuse that was happening in the British Army in Iraq at the time.[51]

In partnership with Matthew Freud, he gained ownership in May 2005 of Press Gazette, a media trade publication together with its "cash cow", the British Press Awards, in a deal worth £1 million.[52][53] This ownership was cited as one of the reasons many major newspapers boycotted the 2006 awards.[54] Press Gazette entered administrative receivership toward the end of 2006,[55] before being sold to a trade buyer.

First News was launched by Morgan on 4 May 2006. A weekly paper aimed at seven to 14-year-olds, he said at its launch that the paper was to be "Britain's first national newspaper for children".[56][57] Morgan was editorial director at First News, responsible for bringing in celebrity involvement. He referred to the role as "editorial overlord and frontman".[58]

In 2007, Morgan was filmed falling off a Segway, breaking three ribs. Simon Cowell outspokenly mocked Morgan's previous comment in 2003, in a Mirror headline after former U.S. President George W. Bush fell off a Segway: "You'd have to be an idiot to fall off wouldn't you, Mr President".[59][60][61]

In 2012, following the revelation of Jimmy Savile's sexual abuse against children, Morgan said he had "never met" Savile in his lifetime, contradicting a 2009 piece he wrote in The Mail on Sunday's Night & Day magazine saying that "As I left, Jimmy Savile came up to me. 'Your TV shows are BRILLIANT!, he exclaimed. ... I've always loved Jimmy Savile."[62]

In September 2014, Morgan became the first editor-at-large of the MailOnline website's US operation and wrote several columns a week.[63]

Morgan was the winner of the U.S. celebrity version of The Apprentice in 2008. He was eventually the overall winner, being named Celebrity Apprentice by host Donald Trump on 27 March, ahead of fellow finalist, American country music star Trace Adkins,[86][87] and having raised substantially more cash than all the other contestants combined.[88] Morgan was called "ruthless, arrogant, evil and obnoxious" by Trump in the final.[89]

Morgan stated he personally would not vote for Trump in the 2016 United States presidential election (though as a permanent resident of the United States, not a citizen, he is not qualified to vote).[90] He predicted Trump's election as President of the United States and described himself as a close friend.[91] Morgan interviewed Trump on Good Morning Britain in March 2016.[92]

Morgan appeared on ITV's Loose Women panel show in late January 2017, and was challenged to repudiate Trump.[93] He refused to do so, despite stating that he disagreed with him on many issues relating to gun control, climate change, abortion, and the "Muslim travel ban", saying that he found the principle of the ban understandable, but disagreed with "the way [Trump] has gone about it".[93]

Nearly a fortnight later, on the American talk show Real Time with Bill Maher, Morgan said "There is no Muslim ban", as "85% of the world's Muslims are allowed in the country". Another participant in the discussion, Australian comedian Jim Jefferies, immediately swore at Morgan and criticised his defence of Trump.[94] After the novelist J. K. Rowling tweeted "Yes, watching Piers Morgan being told to fuck off on live TV is *exactly* as satisfying as I'd always imagined", the two began an exchange of words on the social media site.[95][96]

Morgan criticised Trump after Trump had retweeted Jayda Fransen, deputy leader of the small far-right fascist party Britain First, in late November 2017. He tweeted to Trump: "What the hell are you doing retweeting a bunch of unverified videos by Britain First, a bunch of disgustingly racist far-right extremists? Please STOP this madness & undo your retweets".[97]

In January 2018, Morgan presented President Trump – The Piers Morgan Interview for ITV,[98][99] which many thought of as "sycophantic" and a "love-in" for Trump.[100] Of respondents to a Radio Times Twitter poll, 88% viewed Morgan as being not "tough enough" on Trump.[100] Morgan interviewed Trump again in July 2018 during his official visit to the UK, this time on Air Force One during an internal flight, in a TV special entitled Piers, The President and Air Force One.[101]

In December 2018, Morgan wrote a letter to Trump formally applying to become White House Chief of Staff.[102]

During Trump's state visit to the United Kingdom in June 2019, Morgan once again interviewed Trump, this time at the Churchill War Rooms.[103]

In April 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Morgan wrote a highly critical article of Trump's handling of the crisis in his column for MailOnline. Morgan particularly took issue with Trump's suggestion of looking into "ingesting" disinfectant as a possible solution, describing it as "batshit crazy". In response to the criticism, Trump unfollowed Morgan on Twitter.[104][105][106]

In the aftermath of the 2021 storming of the United States Capitol, Morgan stated that Trump was "mentally unfit" to remain as president. He claimed that the pandemic and Trump's election loss that followed had "sent him nuts". In response to whether he regretted his support of Trump, Morgan said "No question. I never thought he was capable of this."[107]

On 16 September 2021, News UK announced its new channel talkTV would launch in 2022, with Morgan being the first name signed up.[108] Morgan presented Piers Morgan Uncensored weeknights from 25 April 2022, the first and second episodes contained a new interview with Donald Trump.[9] Within a week of the first broadcast, estimated audiences had declined by 80 percent, from 316,800 to 61,700 average viewers of Morgan's show.[109]

Morgan appeared as a guest on the BBC satirical news quiz Have I Got News for You in an episode transmitted on 24 May 1996.[110] In it, show regular Ian Hislop accused Morgan of having him followed and having his house watched. The conflict escalated and at one point the host, Angus Deayton, asked if they wished to go outside and have a fight. Later on, guest panellist Clive Anderson confronted Morgan commenting, "the last time I was rude to you, you sent photographers to my doorstep the next day", to which Morgan retorted, "You won't see them this time." The audience responded loudly in favour of Hislop.[111] The Guardian reported on the state of the feud in 2002. "We're about to start exposing the moon-faced midget", Morgan was quoted as saying, to which Hislop responded, "all he's been offering for information about my private life is a £50 reward. My friends think that's not nearly enough."[32]

In 2007, Hislop chose Morgan as one of his pet hates on Room 101.[112][113] In doing so, Hislop spoke of the history of animosity between himself and Morgan and said that after their exchange on Have I Got News For You (which was shown as a clip), Morgan's reporters were tasked with trying to get gossip on Hislop's private life (including phoning acquaintances of Hislop), and photographers were sent in case Hislop did anything untoward or embarrassing while in their presence. Neither the reporters nor the photographers succeeded. Hislop also said that Morgan had attempted to quell the feud in an article in The Mail on Sunday, saying, "The war is over. I'm officially calling an end to hostilities, at least from my end. I'm sure it won't stop him carrying on his 'Piers Moron' stuff"[114] (Private Eye, the fortnightly satirical magazine that Hislop edits, regularly calls Morgan 'Piers Moron').[115][116][117] Hislop, who was working on a World War I documentary at the time, responded by asking "Is that an armistice or an unconditional surrender?" Although Paul Merton – host of Room 101 at the time and a good friend of Hislop (the pair having captained the teams on Have I Got News For You since its inception) – agreed to put Morgan into Room 101, he then comically rejected Morgan as being "too toxic" for Room 101.[112][118][119]

During Morgan's tenure as editor, the Daily Mirror was advised by Steven Nott that voicemail interception was possible by means of a standard PIN code. Despite staff initially expressing enthusiasm for the story it did not appear in the paper, although it did subsequently feature in a South Wales Argus article and on BBC Radio 5 Live in October 1999. On 18 July 2011, Nott was visited by officers of Operation Weeting.[120]

He came under criticism for his "boasting" about phone hacking from Conservative MP Louise Mensch, who has since apologised for these accusations.[121]

In July 2011, in a sequence of articles, political blogger Paul Staines alleged that while editor of the Daily Mirror in 2002 Morgan published a story concerning the affair of Sven-Göran Eriksson and Ulrika Jonsson while knowing it to have been obtained by phone hacking.[122]

On 20 December 2011, Morgan appeared as a witness by satellite link from the United States at the Leveson Inquiry.[123] While he said he had no reason to believe that phone hacking had occurred at the Mirror while he was in charge there, he admitted to hearing a recording of an answerphone message left by Paul McCartney for Heather Mills, but refused to "discuss where that tape was played or who made [it] – it would compromise a source."[123] Appearing as a witness at the same Inquiry on 9 February 2012, Mills was asked under oath if she had ever made a recording of McCartney's phone call or had played it to Morgan; she replied: "Never".[124][125] She said that she had never authorised Morgan, or anybody, to access or listen to her voicemails.[124] Mills told the inquiry that Morgan, "a man that has written nothing but awful things about me for years", would have relished telling the inquiry if she had played a personal voicemail message to him.[125]

On 23 May 2012, Newsnight presenter Jeremy Paxman was a witness at the Leveson Inquiry. He recalled a lunch with the Mirror editor in September 2002 at which Morgan outlined the means of hacking into a mobile phone.[126]

On 28 November 2012, the Channel 4 documentary Taking on the Tabloids, fronted by actor and phone hacking victim Hugh Grant, showed footage from a 2003 interview with Morgan by the singer and phone hacking victim Charlotte Church, during which he explained to her how to avoid answerphone messages being listened to by journalists. He said: "You can access ... voicemails by typing in a number. Now, are you really telling me that journalists aren't going to do that?"[127][128]

On 29 November 2012, the official findings of the Leveson Inquiry were released, in which Lord Justice Leveson said that Morgan's testimony under oath on phone hacking was "utterly unpersuasive". He stated: "[The] evidence does not establish that [Morgan] authorised the hacking of voicemails or that journalists employed by TMG [Trinity Mirror Group] were indulging in this practice ... What it does, however, clearly prove is that he was aware that it was taking place in the press as a whole and that he was sufficiently unembarrassed by what was criminal behaviour that he was prepared to joke about it."[10][129]

On 6 December 2013, Morgan was interviewed, under caution, by police officers from Operation Weeting investigating phone hacking allegations at Mirror Group Newspapers during his tenure as editor.[130]

On 24 September 2014, the Trinity Mirror publishing group admitted for the first time that some of its journalists had been involved in phone hacking and agreed to pay compensation to four people who sued for the alleged hacking of voicemails.[131][132] Six other phone-hacking claims had already been settled. The BBC reported that it had seen legal papers showing that although the alleged hacking could have taken place as early as 1998, the bulk of the alleged wrongdoing took place in the early 2000s when Morgan was the Daily Mirror editor.[133] The admissions by Trinity Mirror came whilst the London Metropolitan Police investigation into the phone hacking allegations was ongoing. Morgan has always denied any involvement in the practice.[133]

A feud between Morgan and A. A. Gill began when Morgan described Gill's partner Nicola Formby as a sex kitten on whom the mists of time had taken their toll[134] and said she had shown him "porn shots" of herself. Gill said Morgan had made this up and called him a "pretty objectionable self-publicist".[135]

In May 2011, Morgan banned actor Hugh Grant from his shows on CNN and ITV after Grant spoke out against the need for the tabloid press. On Twitter he responded: "Hugh Grant is now banned, in perpetuity, from @PiersTonight and Life Stories and anything else I ever do. Tedious little man."[136]

On 28 March 2012, MTV referred to the bad relations between Morgan and Madonna, reporting that "Morgan has apparently felt slighted over the years by Madonna...he claims he was lied to by the singer's publicist."[137]

In September 2012, it was reported that Morgan had also banned actor Kelsey Grammer. Morgan himself said, "Kelsey Grammer saw a photo of his ex-wife Camille in the open of our show and legged it."[138] TVGuide reported, "All plans were still a go for the segment until Grammer actually got in the hot seat and saw the footage the producers had planned to peg to the segment, including a picture of his ex-wife".[139] On 26 September 2012, Fox 11 Los Angeles reported that "many say [it] was an ambush by Piers".[140] The Huffington Post reported that "before the interview was scheduled, it was made clear that Grammer would answer all questions, including those about [his ex-wife]. His sole request was not to show any images of her."[141]

On 4 February 2014, transgender advocate Janet Mock appeared as a guest on Piers Morgan Live to discuss her memoir, Redefining Realness. After the interview aired, Mock sent a series of tweets criticising Morgan for describing Mock as being "formerly a man". Morgan responded that he had "never been treated in such a disgraceful manner" by a guest. On 5 February, Mock appeared as a guest again to debate the dispute.[142]

Morgan has repeatedly clashed with actor John Cleese. In 2015, Cleese stated that he "truly detested" Morgan and had avoided him in a restaurant. He also said he thought Morgan was "in jail", erroneously stating that Morgan had "admitted" to authorising phone-hacking. Morgan responded that the "revulsion" between them was "mutual". When Cleese's tweet about detesting Morgan became his most popular to date, Cleese said "clearly I must insult the slimy, attention-seeking little prole more often". Morgan joked that he was glad to have been able to make Cleese "popular again".[143] In 2017, Cleese told Radio Times: "I always thought he was an awful creep [...] I just didn't want to have an encounter with him and since then he's been after me and I've been after him."[144]

Morgan strongly objected to the Women's March on Washington on 21 January 2017, the day after Trump's inauguration, describing protesters as "rabid feminists" and the multiple protests as being "vacuous".[145] The actor Ewan McGregor disagreed with Morgan's statements on the Women's March and pulled out of appearing on Good Morning Britain the following Tuesday after discovering Morgan would be interviewing him, along with Reid.[146] Morgan accused McGregor of being a "paedophile-loving hypocrite" for his past support of Roman Polanski.[147]

Morgan was briefly a friend of Meghan Markle before she became the Duchess of Sussex, but claimed she cut him off early in her relationship with Prince Harry. He has been a regular critic of the couple since then, alleging they are hypocrites and claiming the Duchess is a social climber.[148]

When the couple stepped away from conducting official royal duties early in 2020, Morgan described them as being "the two most spoiled brats in history".[149] Ten days later, he said: "Only surprised it took her so long to get Harry to ditch his family, the monarchy, the military and his country. What a piece of work."[150] Responding to Morgan on Twitter, British comedian Gina Yashere wrote of the broadcaster's "constant racist vitriolic abuse disguised as criticism". Morgan responded that Yashere was being "ridiculous", arguing that the critical responses to the Duchess has "nothing to do with her skin color and everything to do with her being a shameless piece of work doing huge damage to our Royal Family."[151] In a segment of Good Morning Britain on 13 January,[152] Morgan interviewed Afua Hirsch, who accused parts of the British media of behaving in a racist manner towards the Duchess, an interpretation that Morgan said was "completely and grotesquely wrong". InfluencHers, a group of 100 African Caribbean women, advocated an advertisers' boycott of Good Morning Britain. The campaigners described the programme as having "sanctioning bullying and blatant unapologetic disrespect of women" in allowing Morgan's treatment of Hirsch.[153]

When challenged by Decca Aitkenhead of The Sunday Times in May 2020 over "his vendetta" against the Duchess, with Aitkenhead suggesting he had gone too far, Morgan said: "I think that's a perfectly fair criticism. It's probably not wise, if you're a columnist, to make things too personal. Have I taken things a bit too far? Probably. Do I think that will govern and temper how I talk about them going forward? Absolutely."[154]

On Good Morning Britain on 8 and 9 March 2021, Morgan said he doubted the accuracy of the account given by the Duchess of Sussex, in the interview Oprah with Meghan and Harry with Oprah Winfrey, in which she spoke of her mental health issues, which included suicidal thoughts, and she and Harry alleged racist comments from the extended family. A tense on-air argument with his co-host Alex Beresford on 9 March led him to walk off the set of the show. Beresford was highly critical of Morgan's attitude towards the Duchess, saying "She's entitled to cut you off if she wants to. Has she said anything about you after she cut you off? I don't think she has, But yet you continue to trash her".[155] Later in the day, Morgan quit the programme.[14][156][157] The UK's mental health charity Mind expressed "disappointment" in Morgan's comments and said individuals with experience of mental health issues should be "treated with dignity, respect and empathy."[158] ITV plc's chief executive, Carolyn McCall, defended the veracity of the Duchess's comments, adding "importantly everyone should."[159]

ITV News reported the Duchess had complained directly to ITV's CEO about Morgan's comments about mental health, although the broadcaster was not officially commenting on these reports.[160] Ofcom received a complaint from her.[161]

Morgan issued a statement on Twitter, saying, "On Monday, I said I didn't believe Meghan Markle in her Oprah interview. I've had time to reflect on this opinion, and I still don't. Freedom of speech is a hill I'm happy to die on."[82] Broadcaster Andrew Neil described his departure as "a pity" for ITV because he had brought "energy, dynamism and controversy" to its morning broadcast schedule, adding "it had always lagged way behind the BBC breakfast time show and people tuned in because of him." Neil expressed interest in Morgan joining GB News instead.[162] However, Neil later said that talks were affected by a disagreement: "he's [Morgan] got his own idea of what he is worth and we [GB News] have a slightly different idea of what he's worth".[163] In Morgan's last week, Good Morning Britain surpassed the ratings of BBC Breakfast for the first time, and ITV lost almost £200m in market value following his departure.[164]

Actor and comedian Steve Coogan, a prominent supporter of press regulation, described Morgan as "symptomatic of the problem" with the British tabloid media and accused him of "bullying behaviour" regarding his attitude to the Duchess.[165]

During his tenure at Good Morning Britain, Morgan was the subject of thousands of complaints to the British watchdog, Ofcom, relating to his comments.

In 2015, Morgan was criticised by Ofcom for laughing as a guest repeatedly used the word 'fucking' live on air. Although Ofcom did not take action as his co-presenter Susanna Reid quickly apologised, the watchdog expressed concern at his behaviour.[11] In 2016, Ofcom received 70 complaints in relation to comments made by Morgan during interview with Christian magistrate Richard Page about gay marriage, that viewers felt "implied Christians were homophobic".[12] Ofcom confirmed on 13 April 2016 that Morgan would not be investigated for his comments.[166] On 22 January 2018, during a story about a homeless SAS veteran, who had a petition set up in his name calling on his local council to provide him with social housing, Morgan had refused to read out Herefordshire Council's statement. This was judged by Ofcom to be unfair to the council.[167]

On 11 September 2019, Morgan claimed he identified himself as "a two-spirit penguin" in response to a news piece relating to gender neutrality, and said "the world has gone nuts" over gender. This attracted 950 Ofcom complaints from viewers. He was cleared of any wrongdoing in November 2019, and in response, Morgan admitted "he was personally quite pleased" with having one of the highest number of complaints to any British TV show in 2019.[168][169]

On 21 January 2020, Morgan was accused of racism and was hit by 1,095 Ofcom complaints[170][171] for his comments relating to a Chinese dairy advert, in which he said "He's using ching chong ching milk".[172] Morgan also spoke over the advert, saying "ching chang cho jo". He was accused online of using language that is used to antagonise Chinese people and for mocking the Chinese language.[173]

On 9 March 2021, Ofcom launched an investigation into the remarks Morgan made about the Duchess of Sussex's mental health on Good Morning Britain after receiving 41,015 complaints.[174][175][176] The regulator confirmed on 12 March that the Duchess of Sussex had complained as well.[161] On 17 March, it was reported that complaints against Morgan had reached 57,000, breaking Ofcom's record. Morgan remained defiant, stating "Only 57,000? I've had more people than that come up and congratulate me in the street for what I said. The vast majority of Britons are right behind me."[16] Ofcom cleared ITV of any wrongdoing in September 2021 and added that restricting Morgan's views would be a "chilling restriction" on freedom of speech but criticised his "apparent disregard" for the subject of suicide. Morgan described the ruling as "a resounding victory for free speech and a resounding defeat for Princess Pinocchios."[177]