I ignore the haters, but... I’d never want to disappoint my mum
He’s one of the media’s most divisive voices, but Piers Morgan doesn’t give a hoot. Why? Because provocation runs in his family...
TAT MEGHAN’S CORE, YOU’VE GOT SOMEBODY QUITE MALEVOLENT. I FIND IT OFFENSIVE
wo extraordinary, almost unimaginable events took place on September 8. One was the sudden death of Queen Elizabeth II. That triggered the second: it made Piers Morgan cry. Yes, you read that right. Piers Morgan – the media’s most famous loud-mouthed, opinionated berater-in-chief of snowflakes everywhere – shed a tear when he heard the news. ‘I did when I heard she’d actually died, yes,’ he tells me, looking a little startled by it himself.
As it happened, he’d been in a London photo studio shooting the pictures to accompany this interview. ‘Half of them were of me sitting on a gold throne,’ he almost whispers, wincing. The shoot wrapped abruptly as he raced to the TalkTV studios to prepare for an out-of-the-ordinary edition of his weeknightly news show, Piers Morgan Uncensored.
‘As I was driving, I got massively distracted with the practicalities, “Do I have a black suit and tie at the studio?”, that sort of thing. I had a lot of time to think and it really struck me, “God, I’m 57, so she’d been on the throne for 13 years before I was even born”.
‘My family are huge monarchists. My mum camped overnight on The Mall for both Diana and Fergie’s weddings. We ran a country pub with huge street parties for the silver and golden jubilees, and then I anchored the coverage of the platinum jubilee for Fox in America, which was a huge honour.
‘I know it’s not shocking that a 96-year-old woman dies, but what is shocking – and I think a lot of people will feel this – is how emotional it made me. It felt like I’d been told a member of my family had died.’
The news is still only four days old when Piers and I hole up in the back of a restaurant a stone’s throw from his home in London’s Kensington. He chose it. It’s called… Megan’s. Somehow that name, with or without the h, is never far from his. In fact he’s often been accused of having a slightly unhinged obsession with Meghan Markle.
‘I know, but I think that’s such a naive way of looking at it,’ he says. ‘She’s deliberately made herself, along with Harry, a big story for the last few years. My job, on the morning show when I was there, and in my newspaper columns, is to comment on the news. I haven’t written about them any more than other columnists. It’s just because people know that I knew her before she met Harry. They know she never spoke to me again the moment she met him, which I just thought was quite rude and weird.
‘I can’t pretend it hasn’t formed my view about what her character’s like. I’ve tried to be fair but it’s very hard in her case. At her core, you’ve got somebody who is quite malevolent, who is systematically trying to damage the royal family and the monarchy. As someone who was brought up as a fierce royalist I find it offensive and it has to be stopped. So if I have a platform, I’m going to use it because it’s damaging. And I think Harry’s basically the same. The pair of them have whipped themselves into this frenzy of victimhood, which is manifesting itself as constant attacks.’
Safe to say his opinion has not softened since he was sacked from his job as coanchor on Good Morning Britain after Meghan wrote to his boss, Carolyn McCall, to complain about the comments he made about her on air – namely, that he didn’t believe some of her claims about the way the royal family had treated her. No doubt it’s a delicious irony then that Meghan’s attempts to derail his career led to him inking a deal more lucrative than even his ego could have imagined, with a column in the New York Post and his TV work appearing on America’s Fox network and Sky News Australia. And then there’s his new TV home in Britain, the fledgling channel TalkTV. Launched in April, it was heralded as ‘a bold new voice’, signing up a raft of ‘Marmite’ presenters such as Jeremy Kyle, Sharon Osbourne and, of course, Piers. With his news show, Piers Morgan Uncensored, he’s positioned himself as a commentator championing free speech – the enemy of the woke thought police. ‘We now have to have this soft underbelly to everything,’ he bemoans. ‘Everyone’s so offended by everything.’
While Piers wants Uncensored to be the antidote to all of that, it’s fair to say it’s got some challenges ahead. Still in its infancy, the show has bagged some stellar interviews, with the likes of Volodymyr Zelensky and Piers’s old pal Donald Trump. But the viewing figures haven’t, so far at least, set the world on fire. What’s more, one man cannot carry an entire network, but this one seems to have been built around the Cult of Piers Morgan. Credit if it succeeds – and blame if it flops – pretty much rests on his shoulders.
It’s not a topic I relish raising with my friend of 15 years. But, as he says, ‘You and I have had some humdinger arguments over dinner in our time but we’ve never fallen out. Most of my friends and I have great arguments. I think the day we’re too scared to say what we think is an awful place to be taking a democratic society.’
Okay then, isn’t it all a bit annoying when not so long ago you were winning the ratings war on GMB, the job you were forced out of? ‘Well, as you may know, I have quite a healthy ego and a competitive spirit,’ he grins. ‘We know we can’t compete with the BBC or Sky on breaking news. Where we can compete is on day-to-day stuff. Our real bigger picture is not traditional TV. There’s been a good example recently when you had two of the biggest news stories imaginable – brand new PM on Monday, the death of the monarch on Thursday – in the same week. I’ve started doing some on-air monologues; I did one about the Queen, one about Liz Truss, which is at about 15 million views on TikTok.
‘When I went to Good Morning Britain they had very low ratings, that’s why I was brought in. Having made it the most talked-about morning TV show in the country, at TalkTV we’re now starting from scratch.’
This is all as strident as I’d expect, but I remember reading in his book God Bless America: Misadventures Of A Big Mouthed Brit about him losing sleep over poor ratings when he had a show on America’s CNN network. Surely he must have the occasional wobble?
‘Do I wake up and feel a sense of life-enhancing joy at some low rating on any particular day? I do, obviously, in that moment, go, “Oh for f***’s sake, I wish I was still getting millions”. But then I immediately bring myself back to the bigger picture, which is what are we actually trying to achieve? We want to get to being a proper TV network and I think we’re going to have the time to do it. So to me, it’s a really exciting challenge.’
This indomitable Morgan brand of confidence was honed in the sleepy village of Newick, East Sussex, in southeast England. He has two brothers and a sister, and makes the unsettling claim that he is the least opinionated of the lot. ‘I was brought up around very strong women with strong opinions,’ he says. ‘There’s a mischievous, rebellious, provocative streak running through the entire family.
‘My grandmother was expelled from various schools and then became head girl of the one that finally took her. That’s very indicative of my family. My parents worked incredibly hard. They ran a country pub and brought up four kids who all turned out with the attitude that if you roll your sleeves up and get on with it, the more you’ll get out of life.’
Things are a bit different for Piers these days, with his net worth reportedly being £20m (his TalkTV deal alone is said to be worth £50m over three years). But he’s adamant his own brood – sons Spencer, 29, Stanley, 25, and Bertie, 22, and daughter Elise, 10 – won’t get anything handed to them. ‘My kids know I only ever get p***ed off if I feel like they’ve lost the understanding of the value of money. I always remind them they’re not entitled to anything in life. If they ever want any money out of me, they have to
give me a business plan and if I don’t sign off on it, they don’t get it.’ Piers splits his time between London and LA with his second wife of 12 years (Elise’s mother), journalist and author Celia Walden. Living with your own real-life version of Foghorn Leghorn can’t be without its challenges, and recently Celia seemed to confirm that when she wrote an amusing column about the joy of having a ‘marriage sabbatical’ – a summerlong break from her husband. How was it for you, Piers?
‘Well, it was only caused by the fact that I had to spend it with serial killers in maximum security prisons!’ he laughs.
‘So it was probably a more comfortable experience for her in our home in Beverly Hills, lying by the pool having a nice time with her friends,’ he says. ‘Actually I thought she wrote an interesting piece. There’s a lot to be said for it. In the pandemic, everyone had to be with the same person all the time and I don’t think human beings are designed to be like that. But I think the key to a successful marriage is tolerance. Celia never complains about anything I want to do, and I never complain about what she wants to do. Allowing each other to do what we want to do is really important.’
It’s also true that Celia is a modellevel beauty and Piers often gets ribbed about punching above his weight. As his 60th birthday looms, I wonder if he’s ever felt pressure to have ‘work’ done? ‘The only thing I’ve ever succumbed to is teeth whitening. I would never have plastic surgery. I’d rather never work on television again. I’ve never been chosen for television work because of my rugged good looks, much as I’d like to think I have.’
Oh I don’t know, my mother-in-law has a crush on you. ‘Yeah, I’m very popular with mothers. I don’t know why.’
Does that make up for the hordes on social media who would love to see him fall flat on his face? ‘My kids will tell you, 99% of people who approach me are incredibly friendly. You can get an impression from Twitter that everyone hates me, but only 20% of the public are on Twitter. And they tend to skew woke/left so I’m their bête noire; they’re all, “Cancel him immediately!” Whereas if we sat down together and actually had a level-headed discussion, they’d find we probably agree on most things.
‘But it doesn’t bother me. I don’t understand why you’d care about people who don’t know you. People who I know and like, my family and friends, I care what they think. I’d never want to disappoint my mother.’
IF MY KIDS WANT ANY MONEY OUT OF ME, THEY HAVE TO GIVE ME A BUSINESS PLAN
I WAS BROUGHT UP AROUND VERY STRONG WOMEN WITH STRONG OPINIONS