Within six months Piers Morgan has gone from quitting his breakfast presenter role at ITV’s GMB to signing a major deal with Rupert Murdoch’s News UK that might have made him the UK’s top-paid journalist.
Morgan’s career as a journalist and broadcaster has followed ups and downs like a rollercoaster, being no stranger to controversy.
He left ITV in March after calling into question Meghan Markle’s sincerity in a tell-all interview with Oprah Winfrey and husband Prince Harry when she spoke about feeling suicidal while working as a royal.
It led to 50,000 complaints to Ofcom and Morgan storming off the GMB set, although Ofcom later found the comments did not breach its rules.
Morgan has never backed down on his view about Markle’s interview, tweeting: “I said I didn’t believe Meghan Markle in her Oprah interview. I’ve had time to reflect on this opinion, and I still don’t. If you did, OK. Freedom of speech is a hill I’m happy to die on.”
Now 56, Morgan has 8m followers on Twitter and has gained an army of supporters, many of whom see him as a passionate defender of free speech who is willing to take on the “woke” politics du jour. But his celebrity friends often give the impression that he’s only having fun.
He started his journalism career in newspapers but was forced out over controversy, transitioning to broadcasting with a move to the US where he had a career as a reality TV competition judge and an interviewer, before returning to the UK as a presenter on ITV’s GMB.
At GMB he brought opinionated news coverage to British TV, sounding off about hot topics and talking to guests in an often combative style that has won him both supporters and detractors. He also writes columns for British GQ and Mail Online.
Morgan has been questioned by police over the phone hacking that took place at the Mirror while he was editor – something he denies knowledge of – but has never been arrested or faced charges.
His ability to court controversy was once remarked on by media mogul Rupert Murdoch, whom Morgan worked for at the start of his career. According to Murdoch’s former right-hand man at News International, Les Hinton, the Sun and Times owner reportedly said: “The trouble with Piers [Morgan] is that his balls are bigger than his brains.”
Murdoch has now rehired Morgan to host a show on his new channel TalkTV, alongside a book deal, columns in The Sun and New York Post and other presenting duties.
Perhaps most apt in summarising Morgan’s career to date is a quote on his own Twitter profile, which reads: “One day you’re the cock of the walk, the next a feather duster.”
Below we take a look at Morgan’s highs and lows over four decades in the media…
Piers Morgan’s career timeline
Piers Morgan was born on 30 March, 1965, in Surrey. He went on to study for his NCTJ diploma in journalism at Harlow College, Essex, before working on newspapers in south London and Surrey.
1989
Hired as editor of The Sun’s Bizarre showbiz section, kicking off his Fleet Street career.
1994
Appointed editor-in-chief of the News of the World aged 29, making him the youngest national newspaper editor in more than 50 years at the time.
1995
Moves to rival tabloid the Daily Mirror as editor.
2000
Buys £20,000 of shares in a company the day before it is set to be tipped as a good investment in the Mirror’s City Slickers financial column. Morgan is later cleared of wrongdoing by the Mirror board, and by the Department of Trade and Industry following a four-year probe. It was reported that he sold the shares and promised to give the profits to charity.
2003
Morgan plants Mirror graduate trainee Ryan Parry as a royal footman at Buckingham Palace, a job he held for two months undercover, in what the paper described as “the biggest royal security scandal ever”.
As well as making a mockery of the £10m security arrangements surrounding the visit of US president George Bush, the nation was riveted by details Parry revealed about the domestic arrangements of the Queen and Prince Philip, including their penchant for Tupperware and eating their breakfast while listening to Radio 2.
2004
Mirror loses privacy case at Supreme Court against supermodel Naomi Campbell over pictures showing her attending a drug help group. In response, Morgan says it is “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”.
Morgan prints pictures purportedly showing British soldiers “torturing” prisoners of the Iraq War on the front page of the Mirror. The images are later revealed to be a hoax and Morgan is fired as the paper’s editor.
2005
Buys Press Gazette with partner Matthew Freud, setting up Press Gazette Ltd.
2006
Joins Simon Cowell as a judge on US TV talent show America’s Got Talent.
Press Gazette Ltd goes into administration (title is bought by Wilmington Media).
2007
Joins the judging panel of Britain’s Got Talent (until 2010).
2008
Wins the US celebrity version of The Apprentice where he strikes up a friendship with the show’s star, Donald Trump.
2009
Piers Morgan’s Life Stories launches on ITV, a series of in-depth interviews with celebrities. (Guests in 2021 included actor Rupert Everett, boxer Chris Eubank and reality TV star Gemma Collins.)
2011
Morgan replaces veteran interviewer Larry King as host of CNN’s flagship nightly talk show, which is renamed Piers Morgan Live, with Morgan reportedly signing a four-year deal worth £5.5m. He uses the platform to take on the US gun lobby and campaign for stricter gun laws.
2014
Morgan is sacked from his CNN talk show after his audience drops from around 2m to 270,000. He told the New York Times: “It’s been a painful period and lately we have taken a bath in the ratings.
“Look, I am a British guy debating American cultural issues, including guns, which has been very polarising, and there is no doubt that there are many in the audience who are tired of me banging on about it. That’s run its course…”
Joins Mail Online as US editor-at-large
Named most influential journalist on social media by Press Gazette
2015
Joins ITV as co-host of Good Morning Britain alongside Susanna Reid. He tweets of his appointment: “Brace yourselves Britain.” Morgan earns a reputation as a combative interviewer not afraid to spout his opinion and helps grow the show’s audience from 600,000 to 1.7m.
2017
In a tweet responding to a Telegraph interview with Will Young in which the singer reveals he left Strictly Come Dancing because of his Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Morgan says: “Will Young does not have PTSD. He has WNTS – Whiny Needy Twerp Syndrome.”
Will Young does not have PTSD.
He has WNTS – Whiny Needy Twerp Syndrome. https://t.co/to792xUSul— Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) May 29, 2017
Earlier the same month, during Mental Health Week, he tweeted that Britain should “man up” over mental illness.
34 million UK adults are mentally ill? What utter nonsense.
Man up, Britain & focus on those who REALLY need help. https://t.co/C21SAg09AL— Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) May 10, 2017
2018
Secures world exclusive interview with President Donald Trump, but faces criticism for what some described as a “sycophantic” approach and failure to hold power to account.
Incredible response to #TrumpMorgan… love him or hate him – and there's no middle ground! – nobody in the world draws a bigger, more visceral reaction than Donald Trump. pic.twitter.com/VVnxTNK26m
— Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) January 28, 2018
2019
Second interview with President Trump, this time at the White House. Morgan defends his interviews with Trump, saying they are “as combative as any of those that I have ever seen”.
2020
Morgan’s warnings over the pandemic on Twitter and hounding of Government ministers on GMB over their failures in dealing with the growing crisis earn him plaudits.
Publishes book, Wake Up: Why the world has gone nuts, taking on cancel culture.
2021
Leaves ITV over comments about Meghan Markle, which leads to 41,000 viewers complaints to Ofcom and a heated exchange with co-presenter Alex Beresford about race.
Joins Rupert Murdoch’s News UK as host of a show on the group’s new TV channel TalkTV set to launch early 2022. The deal is likely to make him the highest-paid journalist in the UK.
As part of the deal Morgan has also been signed as a weekly Sun and New York Post columnist while rights to his next book, a follow-up to Wake Up about the “war on free speech”, have been signed by News Corp’s HarperCollins UK. He will also present a series of true crime documentaries.
Picture: Reuters/Mario Anzuoni
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