Piers Morgan, who was once credibly accused of hacking into celebrities’ phones while he was editor of the gossip rag Daily Mirror, has decided to leave his daytime talk show Good Morning Britain. On Tuesday, its broadcaster ITV issued the following statement: “Following discussions with ITV, Piers Morgan has decided now is the time to leave Good Morning Britain. ITV has accepted this decision and has nothing further to add.”
The parting of ways came after Morgan launched into yet another series of vicious attacks against Meghan Markle, the wife of Prince Harry, following their primetime interview with Oprah Winfrey on Sunday night—a television event that attracted 17 million viewers in the U.S. and thousands of headlines. During the chat, Meghan opened up about the gaslighting, neglect, and lack of security she’d faced from the British royal family, claiming they’d refused her cries for help when she was having suicidal ideations, and prevented her from seeking professional counsel. She also alleged that the royals, who have a long history of racism, failed to counter false attacks by the British tabloids, and even expressed concern over the color of her future child’s skin. This candid confession prompted Morgan to accuse Meghan of spewing “vile destructive self-serving nonsense,” spreading “race-baiting propaganda,” and stating, “I don’t believe a word she says, Meghan Markle. I wouldn’t believe her if she read me a weather report.”
Morgan was confronted numerous times by Black guests and co-presenters on Good Morning Britain over his callous statements toward Meghan, causing him to storm off the set and somehow paint himself as the real victim of racist bullying.
Shortly before news of his departure, Ofcom, the UK’s communications regulator, announced that they were launching an investigation into Morgan’s comments about Meghan “under our harm and offence rules,” after receiving “41,015 complaints about the programme.”
Of course, Morgan has harbored a bizarre obsession with attacking Meghan and Harry since she entered his orbit. He’s penned dozens of columns for the Daily Mail—a rag that’s published some of the more vile racist attacks against Meghan, like this one about her “gang-scarred home,” and who Meghan has successfully sued—accusing them of everything from exploiting Princess Diana’s death for giving a speech in Miami (this is Harry’s mother we’re talking about), to mocking her baby bump photo. And it seems Morgan’s fixation on Meghan has a bit of backstory.
In a Daily Mail column dated Dec. 4, 2018, wherein he branded Meghan “a ruthless social climbing actress,” Morgan recounted how he’d struck up a DM relationship with Meghan a few years back, exchanging pleasantries via Twitter. Then, in June 2016, Morgan described how Meghan said she was in London and wanted to meet up, so Morgan suggested his local pub in Kensington. After 90 minutes of pub talk, Morgan wrote that Meghan left him for a dinner with friends and never spoke to him again. “I’d been ghosted,” he wrote. (Morgan was married at the time.)
So, there you have it.
Even outside of the Meghan Markle madness, Morgan, a bloviating buffoon who’s committed more ethical breaches than entire journalism newsrooms, has failed upward his entire career.
He was sacked from the Murdoch tabloid News of the World after publishing photos of Catherine Victoria Lockwood—then the wife of Charles, the Earl Spencer and younger brother of Princess Diana—leaving a rehab facility. He was then named editor of the Daily Mirror, where he was caught using his column for a pump-and-dump scheme. But Morgan wasn’t fired from the post until he chose to publish fake photos of Iraqi prisoners being tortured by British soldiers (he also refused to apologize for the error).
After his firing, Morgan was given a curious number of opportunities in America, including as a judge on the reality-competition series America’s Got Talent, and a contestant (and eventual winner) of The Apprentice, hosted by Donald Trump. Morgan later appeared as a judge on the program and was seen laughing as Trump sexually harassed contestant Brande Roderick, saying, “Excuse me… you dropped to your knees? Must be a pretty picture, you dropping to your knees.”
In 2010, Morgan inexplicably took over Larry King’s CNN show, and Piers Morgan Live aired until 2014, when it was canceled due to low ratings. (He famously mocked trans guest Janet Mock on Piers Morgan Live—calling her “formerly a man.”) He appeared as a witness in the Leveson Inquiry, where he was accused of phone-hacking and publishing stories with information obtained from phone-hacking; ultimately, the judge found Morgan to be “utterly unpersuasive” but that “the evidence does not establish” that he partook in phone hacking. A few years later, however, the Daily Mirror’s publishing group, Trinity Mirror, admitted that it had been engaging in phone-hacking while Morgan was editor, releasing the following statement:
<p>“The company today confirms that its subsidiary MGN Ltd has admitted liability to four individuals who had sued MGN for alleged interception of their voicemails many years ago. MGN has apologised to those individuals and agreed to pay compensation. The amount of that compensation will be assessed by the court if it cannot be agreed. The company can also confirm that six other voicemail interception claims have already been settled for agreed sums.”</p>
After the cancellation of Piers Morgan Live, Morgan became a co-host of Good Morning Britain in 2015. During his tenure, he was one of candidate (and then president) Donald Trump’s most vocal defenders, repeatedly co-signing Trump’s “Muslim ban,” accusing those in the Women’s March of being “rabid feminists” participating in “a mass hissy fit,” conducted softball interviews with Trump, and even applied to be his chief of staff. He started distancing himself from Trump during the COVID crisis, but the two have since made up after, according to Morgan, Trump plugged his book. It’s unsurprising that he’d find such a kinship with Trump, since Morgan enjoys nothing more than policing women’s looks, be it Meghan or even Rihanna, and has a slippery relationship with the truth, having been caught lying about—among other things—meeting notorious pedophile Jimmy Savile.
And now, Morgan is gone from Good Morning Britain, and for the next decade, we’ll surely never hear the end of how the “cancel culture” “woke mob” came for his scalp, perhaps on the soon-to-be-launched U.K. right-wing news network GB News. Maybe he’ll even start a Substack and devote most of his tweets to attacking mainstream media reporters and raging over Dr. Seuss, like Glenn Greenwald. But for the time being, at least he won’t be on morning TV whinging about a woman who spurned his advances.
