Piers Morgan
Piers Stefan Pughe-Morgan (/pɪərz/; né O'Meara, born 30 March 1965[1]) is an English broadcaster, journalist, writer, and television personality. He began his career in 1988 at the tabloid The Sun. In 1994, at the age of 29, he was appointed editor of the News of the World by Rupert Murdoch, which made him the youngest editor of a British national newspaper in more than half a century.[2] From 1995, Morgan edited the Daily Mirror, but was fired in 2004.[3] He was the editorial director of First News from 2006 to 2007. In 2014, Morgan became the first editor-at-large of the MailOnline website's US operation.
Piers Morgan
- Broadcaster
- journalist
- writer
- television personality
1985–present
- News of the World (1994–1995)
- Daily Mirror (1995–2004)
- First News (2006–2007)
- CNN (2011–2014)
- MailOnline (2014–2021)
- ITV (2007–2021)
- The Sun (1989–1994, 2022–)
- TalkTV (2022–2024)
4
Rebecca Loos (second cousin)
As a television presenter, Morgan hosted the ITV talk show Piers Morgan's Life Stories (2009–2020) and the CNN talk show Piers Morgan Live (2011–2014). He co-presented the ITV Breakfast programme Good Morning Britain with Susanna Reid (2015–2021), and has also been a judge on the talent shows America's Got Talent (2006–2011) and Britain's Got Talent (2007–2010).[4][5][6] In 2008, Morgan won The Celebrity Apprentice US, appearing with future US president Donald Trump.[7][8] Since 2022, he has been a presenter for TalkTV on the programme Piers Morgan Uncensored.[9][10]
Morgan was the editor of the Daily Mirror during the period in which the paper was implicated in the phone hacking scandal. In 2011, Morgan denied having ever hacked a phone and stated that he had not, "to my knowledge published any story obtained from the hacking of a phone". The following year, he was criticised in the findings of the Leveson Inquiry by chair Brian Leveson, who stated that comments made in Morgan's testimony about phone hacking were "utterly unpersuasive" and "that he was aware that it was taking place in the press as a whole and that he was sufficiently unembarrassed by what was criminal behaviour that he was prepared to joke about it".[11] The judge in a 2023 court case against Mirror Group Newspapers found truthful evidence that Morgan knew about private phone hacking from a reporter, shared a method of phone hacking with a media professional while being questioned about a reporting scoop, and that Morgan played another's private phone message in the newsroom he had received from another tabloid editor.[12][13]
Morgan's outspoken views and controversial comments on Good Morning Britain have led Ofcom to adjudicate on multiple occasions.[14][15][16] In March 2021, Morgan left the programme with immediate effect, following his criticism of the Oprah with Meghan and Harry interview.[17][18] Ofcom received over 57,000 complaints from viewers,[19] including a complaint from Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, herself;[20] Morgan was subsequently cleared of wrongdoing by Ofcom.[21]
Early life and education
Morgan was born in Reigate, Surrey on 30 March 1965, the son of Vincent Eamonn O'Meara, an Irish dentist from County Offaly,[22][23] and Gabrielle Georgina Sybille (née Oliver),[24] an English woman who raised Morgan as a Catholic.[24][25] A few months after his birth, the family moved to Newick, East Sussex.[22] His father died when Morgan was 11 months old; his mother later married Glynne Pughe-Morgan,[26][27] a Welsh pub landlord who later worked in the meat distribution business, and he took his stepfather's surname.[2] He was educated at the independent Cumnor House prep school between the ages of seven and 13, then Chailey School, a comprehensive secondary school in Chailey, followed by Priory School, Lewes, for sixth form.[28] After nine months at Lloyd's of London, Morgan studied journalism at Harlow College,[2] joining the Surrey and South London Newspaper Group in 1985.[29]
Press career
At the Murdoch titles (1988–1995)
Morgan began to work as a freelance at The Sun in 1988, at this point dropping his double-barrelled name. He told Hunter Davies in December 1994 that he was personally recruited by Sun editor Kelvin MacKenzie to work on the newspaper's show business column "Bizarre", his first high-profile post.[2] Although he was not a fan of pop music, he was considered skilled at self-publicity and became the column's main writer. "I became the Friend of the Stars, a rampant egomaniac, pictured all the time with famous people – Madonna, Stallone, Bowie, Paul McCartney, hundreds of them. It was shameless, as they didn't know me from Adam", he told Davies.[2]
In January 1994, he became editor of the News of the World after being appointed to the job by Rupert Murdoch. Initially an acting editor, he was confirmed in the summer, becoming at 29 the youngest national newspaper editor in more than half a century.[2] In this period, the newspaper led with a series of scoops for which Morgan credited a highly efficient newsdesk and publicist Max Clifford.[30]
Morgan left this post in 1995 shortly after publishing photographs of Catherine Victoria Lockwood, then wife of Charles, Earl Spencer, leaving an addictive disorders clinic in Surrey.[31] This action ran against the editors' code of conduct,[32] a misdemeanour for which the Press Complaints Commission upheld a complaint against Morgan.[32] Murdoch was reported as having said that "the boy went too far"[33] and publicly distanced himself from the story.[34] Fearful of a privacy law action if he had not criticised one of his employees, Murdoch is said to have apologised to Morgan in private.[35][36]
The incident was reported to have contributed to Morgan's decision to leave for the Daily Mirror editorship.[37] Morgan's autobiography The Insider states that he left the News of the World for the Mirror of his own choice. It asserts he was an admirer of former Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher for most of her period of office, making the appointment surprising as the Mirror is a Labour-supporting title.[28]
Daily Mirror editor
As editor of the Daily Mirror, Morgan apologised on television for the headline (rendered in upper case) "Achtung Surrender! For You Fritz Ze Euro Championship Is Over" on 25 June 1996, a day before England met Germany in a semi-final of the Euro '96 football championships.[30][38][39][40] The headline was accompanied by an open letter from Morgan parodying Neville Chamberlain's declaration of war on Germany in 1939. "It was intended as a joke, but anyone who was offended by it must have taken it seriously, and to those people I say sorry," he said.[40] Germany won the match and went on to win the championship final at Wembley Stadium, London.[41]
Under Morgan' leadership, the Daily Mirror spent £16 million on a rebranding project, including the dropping of "Daily" from the masthead in February 1997,[42] which was later reversed. Roy Greenslade wrote in August 1999 that Morgan's editorship "has made a huge difference: his enormous enthusiasm, determination and focus is a major plus".[43]
Morgan was the subject of an investigation in 2000 after Suzy Jagger wrote an article for The Daily Telegraph revealing that he had bought £20,000 worth of shares in the computer company Viglen soon before the Mirror's "City Slickers" column tipped Viglen as a good buy.[44] Morgan was found by the Press Complaints Commission to have breached the Code of Conduct on financial journalism, but kept his job. The "City Slickers" columnists, Anil Bhoyrul and James Hipwell, were both found to have committed further breaches of the Code and were sacked before the inquiry concluded.[45] Further enquiry by the Department of Trade and Industry in 2004 cleared Morgan of any charges.[46] On 7 December 2005, Bhoyrul and Hipwell were convicted of conspiracy to breach the Financial Services Act. During the trial it emerged that Morgan had bought £67,000 worth of Viglen shares, emptying his bank account and investing under his (first) wife's name as well.[47]
The Mirror attempted to move mid-market in 2002, eschewing the more trivial stories of show-business and gossip, and appointed Christopher Hitchens as a columnist, but sales declined.[28][48] In October 2003, journalist and television personality Jeremy Clarkson emptied a glass of water over Morgan during the last flight of Concorde in response to some photographs published in the Mirror.[49] In March 2004, at the British Press Awards, Clarkson punched Morgan three times during another argument.[49] In Campbell v MGN Ltd,[50] the Law Lords in May 2004 found in favour of model Naomi Campbell on privacy grounds after the Mirror had published a photograph of her entering a Narcotics Anonymous clinic. Morgan was critical of the judgement saying it was "a good day for lying, drug-abusing prima donnas who want to have their cake with the media and the right to then shamelessly guzzle with their Cristal champagne."[51][52]
In the wake of the Abu Ghraib torture scandal, Morgan was sacked as editor of the Daily Mirror "with immediate effect" on 14 May 2004, after refusing to apologise to Sly Bailey, then head of Trinity Mirror, for authorising the newspaper's publication of fake photographs.[53] The photos were alleged to show Iraqi prisoners being abused by British Army soldiers from the Queen's Lancashire Regiment.[54] Within days the photographs were shown to be crude fakes. According to official British sources, the photographs were apparently taken in North-West England. Under the headline "SORRY..WE WERE HOAXED", the Mirror responded that it had fallen victim to a "calculated and malicious hoax" and apologised for the publication of the photographs.[55][56] However, Morgan refused to admit that the photographs were faked, and stated that the abuse shown in the photographs is similar to the sort of abuse that was happening in the British Army in Iraq at the time.[57]
Personal life
Morgan married Marion Shalloe, a hospital ward sister,[2] in 1991. The couple had three sons, and separated in 2004 before divorcing in 2008.[185][186] In June 2010, he married his second wife, journalist Celia Walden, daughter of the former Conservative MP George Walden in Swinbrook, Oxfordshire.[187] He lives in Kensington, London and has two other properties in Newick, East Sussex and Hollywood, Los Angeles.[188]
Morgan is a supporter of Premier League football club Arsenal.[189] He was an outspoken critic of former Arsenal manager Arsène Wenger and called for his sacking on many occasions. Speaking in defence of Wenger in 2015, former Arsenal goalkeeper Bob Wilson labelled Morgan an "incredibly pompous individual".[190] When Arsenal midfielder Aaron Ramsey met Morgan on 26 April 2015, Ramsey refused to shake his hand due to the criticism he received from Morgan during the 2012–13 season. Morgan has responded by calling Ramsey 'whatshisname'.[191]
Politically, Morgan identified as a supporter of the Conservative Party in a 1994 interview, saying he was "still basically a Tory", but expressed admiration for the New Labour leader Tony Blair, saying "he's not radical, speaks well and makes sense".[2] He voted for the Kensington Conservative candidate in the 2019 UK general election,[192] after previously voting for the Animal Welfare Party.[193] Morgan has also stated he has previously voted for the Labour Party.[192]
On 24 July 2021, Morgan said he had developed COVID-19 after the Euro 2020 final, despite being fully vaccinated. He added that a strong fever, violent coughing, chills and sneezing fits left him exhausted and fearing what might come next.[194]
Morgan is of Irish Catholic descent.[195] He has often spoken of his Catholic faith[196] and believes in an afterlife, but does not "go to Confession, probably because it would take [him] too long".[197]