Piers: Royals sent thanks when I stood up for them
PIERS MORGAN claims members of the royal family have contacted him to say thanks for ‘standing up for them’ in the wake of Harry and Meghan’s Oprah Winfrey interview.
‘I’ve had some messages communicated to me on behalf of several members of the royal family,’ Mr Morgan said in an interview with US host Billy Bush on Extra TV.
He added: ‘I’m not going to go into who it was... but gratitude that somebody was standing up.’
The former ITV presenter quit breakfast show Good Morning Britain on March 9 over on-air comments about the Duchess of Sussex.
He had said he did not believe a word of her interview with Oprah and slammed her for insinuating that the royal family was racist. ‘There’s been an attempt to cancel me. There’ve been many attempts like this before, and somehow I remain resolutely uncancelled,’ he said.
‘In the end, I was required to apologise for disbelieving Meghan Markle, who I don’t believe – and I believe, which is ironic, that you should not believe somebody if you don’t want to,’ Morgan said of his GMB departure.
In the aftermath of the furore, there were reports Meghan Markle had personally contacted the boss of the ITV network to complain about him. But the presenter said he was not aware of any contact from her until after he left.
‘It was certainly a very interesting revelation from where I sit, because clearly she was trying to put huge pressure on my bosses to take action against me,’ he said.
The network received 57,000 complaints about Mr Morgan following his comments about the duchess. He said they were from an ‘online mob’ that made death threats against his family.
Asked by Bush what he would say to Meghan now, Mr Morgan said he would ask her ‘more difficult questions about all your claims’.
He said his question would be: ‘If you hate the royal family that much, why do you keep your royal titles? Why would you do that if it’s just not to make millions and millions of dollars?’