Piers snaps: Short on sympathy, Susanna?
It sounds like Piers Morgan has expected a little more love from his old pal Susanna Reid…
Susanna Reid may not have mentioned her former co-host Piers Morgan since his dramatic exit from GMB – but we suspect she’ll be missing him more than she expected, especially given the show’s huge ratings dip (last week, viewing figures were reported as dropping a million from a record of 1.8 million).
So we can’t imagine Susanna will have been delighted by Piers’ recent comments during an interview with Fox News in America, in which he maintained his former co-star was ‘in the grip of fear’ and afraid that ‘if she went too far in saying nice things about me, the same thing might happen to her’.
Last month, some celebrated and others commiserated Piers’ shock departure from GMB, following a row over comments he made about Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex.
But of all the people whose reaction, it seems, Piers didn’t quite expect, it was that of his co-host for the past five years – Susanna Reid.
The fomer GMB presenter, 56, revealed that few showed him less sympathy on leaving the show than his co-host.
‘Jeez, even my real ex-wife talks more fondly about me than that (and, in fact, did so overnight in a very supportive message),’ he slammed, referring to Marion Shalloe, mother to his three grown-up sons.
There’s no doubt Susanna – who continues to soldier on despite the slump that followed the clash between Piers and weatherman Alex Beresford – would admit the show is a different place without her old colleague and friend.
And a less-than-impressed Piers couldn’t miss the opportunity to take a teasing swipe at her the day after his exit.
‘At 6.30am, I turned on GMB to see what my “TV wife” Susanna would say about our sudden divorce,’ he wrote.
‘Stony-faced, she read a short, rather frosty statement: “Piers and I have disagreed on many things and that dynamic was one of the things viewers loved about the programme. But now Piers has decided to leave the programme. Some of you may cheer and others will boo… but shows go on and so on we go”.’
Piers, who is now married to journalist Celia Walden, said he received a series of messages after, asking if he and Susanna had fallen out.
But he maintained they had not, saying, ‘I hope we stay friends because Susanna’s a decent person and we’ve been through a lot together.’
He did later admit that Susanna called him and ‘apologised for the tone of voice in her chilly goodbye’.
Their friendship, it seems, may survive after all – especially as Susanna, who’s not had a drink for two years, has pledged to get drunk with Piers for a belated leaving do…