With the news that UK television presenter Piers Morgan has left his role on morning television, we thought we’d bring you a small selection of the (many) times over the years he has made us want to bang our head against a wall.
Let’s start with the events of this week that led to him storming out of the studio, live on air, after being challenged by a colleague over his abusive comments about Meghan Markle.
On Monday, following the airing of Oprah’s interview with Meghan and Harry, Morgan said he didn’t believe what Markle had shared about her struggles with mental health and suicidal thoughts.
“I’m sorry, I don’t believe a word she says,” he said. “I wouldn’t believe her if she read me a weather report.”
The following day, Good Morning Britain co-host Alex Beresford challenged Morgan over his comments, saying: “I understand that you don’t like Meghan Markle.”
“You’ve made it so clear a number of times on this program, and I understand that you had a personal relationship with Meghan Markle and she cut you off. Has she said anything about you after she cut you off? She’s entitled to cut you off if she wants to. And yet you continue to trash her.”
This prompted Morgan to storm off. As he left, Beresford said: “That’s pathetic. This is absolutely diabolical behaviour.
“I’m sorry, but Piers spouts off on a regular basis and we all have to sit there and listen – 6.30am to 7am yesterday was incredibly hard to watch.”
This from Piers Morgan.
— Lisa Wilkinson (@Lisa_Wilkinson) March 9, 2021
Years of abuse, right up to and including the day Meghan tells the world that ongoing abuse has made her suicidal.
It’s what happens when a strong woman rejects a powerful man.
For the record, Meghan has never responded to any of it.#MeghanAndHarry pic.twitter.com/BUTve1kMAQ
The time he mocked Greta Thunberg
In 2019, Morgan took aim at then 16-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg, performing a mocking impersonation of the teenager’s impassioned speech at the UN.
Thunberg had slammed world leaders for their failure to act on the climate crisis during her address, and called them out their “betrayal” of young people.
“You all come to me for hope? How dare you. You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words,” she said at the time.
Morgan, putting on an accent and using some of Thunberg’s rhetoric, said: “How dare you. You have stolen my morning. You have stolen my airtime. I have no life. How dare you.”
Sexist and ageist remarks about Madonna
Piers Morgan seemingly has a problem with Madonna’s age. On multiple occasions on air, Morgan has inferred that the pop star does not act appropriately for her age, calling her “embarrassing” and “grotesque”, among other things.
‘Now it’s just pathetic watching Madonna now. Pathetic. Everybody finds her pathetic and now we’re having a biopic,” he said last year, after it was revealed Madonna would direct her own biopic.
“She’s 62 now going on 20. The act doesn’t work. It’s embarrassing.
“She doesn’t know how to age gracefully. She’s trying to act the age of her boyfriends. I think the latest one’s about – what is he, 18? They’re always older than her kids, I know that.”
It seems Madonna’s age is something that has always struck a chord with Morgan. Back in 2016, he said: “She is becoming increasingly grotesque and embarrassing.”
“To watch a woman in her late-50s cavorting around in fishnet stockings, falling over, swearing, shouting and behaving like a… you can fill in the blank. I find it absolutely toe-curling.”
Laura Tobin comments
Remember the time Morgan talked – at length – about the pants his colleague Laura Tobin wore to work, back in January 2020?
Morgan told Tobin, the weather presenter of Good Morning Britain, that she “deliberately” wore the faux leather pants to attract attention.
“When a female presenter parades herself in skintight leather trousers to do the weather, you are going to get people going: “wow!” he said.
“If she is going to wear figure-hugging leather trousers, I am going to notice. You deliberately wore them to get people to notice, all of you wear clothes hoping they will get noticed.”
“If I call you hot, why is that offensive?”
He continued: “They’re not just a pair of trousers, they’re the most skin tight, leather hot pants I’ve seen in many a year. You’ve paraded them for your seven-day weather forecast.”
The time he dad-shamed Daniel Craig
In 2018, Morgan sparked global furore when he openly mocked actor Daniel Craig for walking with his baby attached to his front in a carrier.
“Emasculating, embarrassing, unnecessary” were the words Morgan chose to describe Craig as he simply went about his day as a father.
Morgan tweeted that the actor was “virtue signalling”.
This promoted fellow Hollywood actor Chris Evans to write: “You really have to be so uncertain of your own masculinity to concern yourself with how another man carries his child.”
“Any man who wastes time quantifying masculinity is terrified on the inside.”
You really have to be so uncertain of your own masculinity to concern yourself with how another man carries his child. Any man who wastes time quantifying masculinity is terrified on the inside. https://t.co/9jsHZ3WKRn
— Chris Evans (@ChrisEvans) October 16, 2018
When he called protestors “rabid” feminists
And let’s not forget the time in 2017, when Morgan took aim at the thousands of women and men participating in the now infamous Women’s March in the United States, that took place following the election of Donald Trump.
“Imagine if there were a load of men-only marches today? The feminists would go crackers,” Morgan wrote on Twitter at the time.
He later declared that he thought men’s rights were being threatened by women protesting for their rights.
“I’m planning a ‘Men’s March’ to protest at the creeping global emasculation of my gender by rabid feminists. Who’s with me?”
I’m planning a ‘Men’s March’ to protest at the creeping global emasculation of my gender by rabid feminists. Who’s with me?
— Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) January 21, 2017