Of course, nothing says “canceled” quite like having a new book out and an hourlong interview featured in a primetime spot on Fox News.
Piers Morgan—who has complained of being canceled after he agreed to resign from his job on British morning TV after years of attacks against Meghan Markle culminated in him walking off the show in a rage when confronted by the show’s weatherman, Alex Beresford—had a true meeting of minds with Tucker Carlson. Excerpts of Carlson’s Fox Nation streaming service interview aired on the his Fox News program on Monday night.
In what is expected to be the first of many media appearances by Morgan to air his grievances and to promote his new book, Wake Up: Why the Liberal War on Free Speech Is Even More Dangerous Than COVID-19, Morgan astonishingly claimed he has the “universal support” of the British public. One can only assume that Morgan finds it acceptable to exclude Beresford, and the millions of people who have expressed support for him, from his confident calculations.
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Morgan left his job on the ITV breakfast show Good Morning Britain last month after he rubbished the Duchess of Sussex’s claim that negative press and lack of support from the royal household had left her suicidal, and that a request for help with this had been rebuffed by a senior person in the British monarchy.
Morgan refused to apologize for his remarks on the morning after Prince Harry and Meghan’s interview with Oprah Winfrey aired in the U.S., but did say on the next day’s show: “When we talked about this yesterday, I said as an all-encompassing thing, I don’t believe what Meghan Markle is saying generally in this interview, and I still have serious concerns about the veracity of a lot of what she said.
“But let me just state on the record my position about mental illness and on suicide. These are clearly extremely serious things that should be taken extremely seriously.”
However, the half-retraction was not enough to save his job and he resigned.
Morgan rose to fame as editor of the now-defunct British tabloid News of the World, and later the Daily Mirror. He was fired from that newspaper after being duped into running faked pictures of British soldiers urinating on an Iraqi prisoner of war.
He subsequently landed a talk show on CNN but it was canceled after three series in 2014.
He took on a job presenting Good Morning Britain the year after that. His stewardship of the show saw it rise in the ratings to become the U.K.’s leading breakfast show.
In his interview with Carlson, which lasted for more than an hour, he accused the Sussexes of telling “so many ridiculous whoppers” in their March interview, and dismissed claims he was racist for not believing them.
“[The interview was] tacky, tasteless, disingenuous, and I’m afraid, I believe, in some cases, downright lying on a global scale.”
Morgan claimed he had received “a lot” of job offers since leaving the show. He has been linked with joining new TV startup GB News, Rupert Murdoch’s new British conservative TV outlet that it is rumored will be modeled on Fox News.
Morgan also slammed CBS for “hypocrisy” in forcing Sharon Osbourne off The Talk for defending him, and criticized the resignation Teen Vogue editor Alexi McHammond, who departed after anti-Asian tweets sent when she was a teenager resurfaced online.
“She apologized for years about stuff she tweeted as a 17-year-old kid, but that wasn’t enough. So, apologies don’t ever get you anywhere,” Morgan railed.
“Should we go back to their tweets when they were 16, 17 and see what’s lurking there? We already know about one of them, that didn’t live up to the holy level that they were setting for this woman. But this young woman’s career has been completely trashed and burned by the woke bonfire because she was not allowed to be contrite,” Morgan said. “She wasn’t allowed to express a sincere apology for stuff she spouted when she was a kid. It’s ridiculous.”
Morgan resigned from Good Morning Britain the day after he stormed off set. There were more than 41,000 complaints received by Ofcom, the U.K.’s communications regulator, including one from Meghan herself following the clash.
She was said to have raised concerns with ITV about the effect Morgan's comments may have on the issue of mental health generally and those attempting to deal with their own problems.
