Piers Morgan

Piers Stefan Pughe-Morgan (né O'Meara; born 30 March 1965) is an English broadcaster, journalist, and former editor of the News of the World (1994–1995) and Daily Mirror (1995–2004) tabloid newspapers. He was a co-anchor of the ITV Breakfast programme Good Morning Britain from 2015 to 2021.

Quotes

1994–2009

• [Did he enjoy his first year as editor of the News of the World?] Very much. It's been a very interesting year. At my age, I probably wasn't expected to survive, but I'm glad to be still here. Oh, if you don't mind, I'd rather not be seen in the photograph with a drink in my hand, if you don't mind
• [As editor of the Bizarre feature in The Sun newspaper] 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. The Sun had had a bad time, after losing an action with Elton John, but this was harmless and funny. The publicity people from the record companies were all in on the joke.
• [On his promotion to editor of the News of the World] I got a call one day, asking me to see Rupert Murdoch in Miami. I suspected it must be something good, but I never expected this. I was flabbergasted.
  Obviously, Kelvin [MacKenzie] had helped, but you have to realise I was filling the column five days a week, running it like a mini newspaper. I had a staff of four and my own budget. I had been offered promotion, as features editor of the Sun, but turned it down, feeling I wasn't ready yet to be a faceless executive.
• [On revealing a pop star's adultery] If X is singing about love and marriage, and sleeping with the nanny, then he deserves to be exposed.
  • Extracts from an interview with Hunter Davies, as quoted in "From City boy to World leader", The Independent (13 December 1994).

• I've always made it a strict rule in life to ingratiate myself with three categories of people: newspaper owners, potential newspaper owners and billionaires.
  This is a despicablle, shameless but often successful modus operandi that hasn't to date done me much harm.
  • "Should He Stay or Should He Go: The Defence", The Observer (London, 14 March 1999)
  • The immediate issue was the consistently rejected applications for British citizenship of Egyptian businessman Mohamed Al-Fayed.

• [On journalism] It is full of lying, cheating, drunken, cocaine-sniffing, unethical people. It's a wonderful profession.
  • "Yelland: 'I've got enough to destroy Morgan'", Press Gazette (7 March 2002, updated 17 May 2007)
  • The article's title refers to former Sun editor David Yelland.

• There was a spate of stories that came out because of mobile phones. When they first came out, mobile phones ... journalists found out that if the celebrity hadn't changed their pin code ... You can access, access their voicemail. Just by tapping in a number. Are you really telling me that journalists aren't going to do that? If they know they can ring up Charlotte Church's mobile phone, listen to all her messages?
• Right, now all you have to do – and I know it's hard because celebrities don't like doing anything for themselves – is actually change your security number.
  • From a conversation with Charlotte Church (2003), as cited in "Piers Morgan phone-hacking conversation to air on Channel 4", The Guardian (28 November 2012).
  • The video of Morgan saying these words was broadcast in the Hugh Grant-presented documentary Taking on the Tabloids (Channel 4) broadcast later the same day in 2012.

• I had more complaints from people who wanted to be in who weren't than from those who were in. Given that there was a lot of score-settling, I was surprised no one took me on, and disappointed actually.
• I actually didn’t care that much about the [Jeremy] Clarkson stuff until he began behaving ridiculously, smacking me round the head. He’s perfectly entitled to smack me around the head, but the idea that smacking editors will help your PR is rather short-sighted.
  • From an interview, as cited in "End of the Piers show? Don’t bet on it", The Times (0 August 2005)
  • The first quote refers to the contents of Morgan's book The Insider: The Private Diaries of a Scandalous Decade. The Mirror published photographs of Clarkson kissing a woman who was not his wife on two occasions. For this, he punched Morgan at the British Press Awards in March 2004, an incident Clarkson wrote about in The Sunday Times.

• I like waging feuds [...] They get me going and make me perform better. I don't start them but I always finish them.
  • From an interview with Jane Martinson, as cited in "'I like waging feuds'", The Guardian (9 March 2009)

2011–2023

• There is a certain advantage to the British accent. I do notice that Americans love it; they think that we Brits are smarter than perhaps we are.
  • Tara Kelly, “Q&A: Piers Morgan, the Man Stepping into Larry King's Seat” Time magazine (14 January 2011)

• As I left, Jimmy Savile came up to me. "Your TV shows are BRILLIANT!" he exclaimed. "And as I’ve been in the telly business for 50 years, you can take that as an informed view." I’ve always loved Jimmy Savile. (Mail on Sunday "Night and Day" column, 2009)
• The Jimmy Savile scandal grows more horrific by the minute [...] I never met him... (Mail on Sunday column October 2012)
  • Cited in "Piers Morgan: did he meet Jimmy Savile or didn't he?" Evening Standard (23 October 2012)

• There is a type of snobbish, pompous journalist who thinks that the only news that has any validity is war, famine, pestilence or politics. I don't come from that school. I certainly appreciate those kinds of stories. I've certainly devoted a lot of time on my show to them. But I also have a much broader spectrum of what I think is interesting, relevant, current or newsworthy.
• [On the fake photos of British troops abusing Iraqi prisoners for which he was fired as editor of the Mirror] I refused to apologize or accept that we had necessarily been duped. I still don’t accept it — I’ve never seen the evidence
  • Interview with Dylan Byers "POLITICO interviews Piers Morgan", Politico (17 January 2013)
  • Interview dates from the period of Piers Morgan Live on CNN.

• Bill O’Reilly is like a comfortable pair of shimmeringly angry slippers, but you know every night what you’re going to get.
  • Meenal Vamburkar, “Piers Morgan Hits Back At Larry King: He ‘Needs To Button It… I’m A Journalist And He’s Not’” (18 January 2013) Mediaite, originally from POLITICO interview.

• There are many different ways of categorizing news. It doesn't have to be just war and famine and serious politics.
  • Meenal Vamburkar, “Piers Morgan Hits Back At Larry King: He ‘Needs To Button It… I’m A Journalist And He’s Not’” (18 January 2013) Mediaite, originally from POLITICO interview.

• Don't chase women, they will chase you… They are like horses in a pasture: if you don't go drooling over her, she is going to want to know why.
  • Shooting Straight: Guns, Gays, God, and George Clooney, Simon and Schuster (2013), p. 144

• Liberals have become utterly, pathetically illiberal and it’s a massive problem. What’s the point of calling yourself a liberal if you don’t allow anyone else to have a different view? You know, this snowflake culture we operate in, this victimhood culture that everyone, has to think in a certain way, behave a certain way. Everyone has to have a bleeding heart… You say a joke 10 years ago that offended somebody you can never host the Oscars… So what’s happening around the world? Populism is rising because people are fed up with the PC culture. They’re fed up with the snowflake culture. They’re fed up with everyone being offended by everything… They just want to tell people, not just how to lead their life but if you don’t lead it the way I tell you to. It’s a kind of version of fascism.
  • Daily Wire interview of Piers Morgan by commentator Ben Shapiro (17 August 2019), “Piers Morgan: The left Has Become Unbearable”

• The liberals get what they want, which is a humorless void where nothing happens, where no one dare do anything, or laugh about anything, or behave in any way that doesn't suit their rigid way of leading a life. No thanks.
  • Daily Wire interview of Piers Morgan by commentator Ben Shapiro (17 August 2019), “Piers Morgan: The left Has Become Unbearable”

• As I've said before, I’m ashamed of some of the inappropriate language I used in The Sun thirty years ago about gay stars. They were different times, but that’s no excuse – it was offensive, it was wrong, and I apologise for it.
  • As quoted by Duncan Lindsay in "Piers Morgan apologises for old EastEnders article using offensive language about gay characters" Metro (29 January 2020).

• He [Prince Harry] demands accountability for the press, but refuses to accept any for himself for smearing the royal family, his own family, as a bunch of callous racists without producing a shred of proof to support those disgraceful claims.
  He also says he's on a mission to reform the media, but it's become clear his real mission, along with his wife, is to destroy the British monarchy, and I will continue to do whatever I can to stop them.
  Merry Christmas.
  • "Piers Morgan denies knowing of phone hacking after judge rules he did", The Guardian (15 December 2023)
  • Prince Harry had won substantial damages as a victim of phone hacking. In a High court judgement made available on the day of Morgan's statement, Mr Justice Fancourt said "unlawful information-gathering was widespread" at the Daily Mirror and that there "can be no doubt" Morgan knew it was happening. In his statement, Morgan repeated earlier claims he had "never hacked a phone".

About Morgan

• He thinks it’s OK to spout a load of venomous, hateful things, which he then tries to back up with statistics. I really, really don't like Piers Morgan [...] And also, through that whole hacking thing, he got away with murder. I just think he’s a bit of a heinous human being.
  • Charlotte Church, as cited in an interview for Vice magazine (November 2016), as cited in "Piers Morgan versus a spaghetti-slathered Emily Ratajkowski, and many more: a guide to his celebrity feuds", The Telegraph (20 December 2017)
  • For the original source.

• It's hardly worth dignifying this man with a response. In any case, all he's been offering for information about my private life is a £50 reward. My friends think that's not nearly enough.
  • Ian Hislop as cited in "Has Piers now got news for Ian?", The Observer (1 September 2002)
  • Morgan had been promising to expose Hislop in the Daily Mirror.