Piers Morgan

About

Piers Morgan is an English journalist and television host known for hosting Good Morning Britain. He is particularly known online for his Twitter presence, where several times he has gone viral for specific tweets.

History

Morgan was born on March 30th, 1952 in Sussex, England as Piers Stefan O'Meara.^[1] He later took on his stepfather's last name, Morgan. Morgan studied journalism at Harlow College. He worked at the South London News and the Streatham and Tooting News before he was recruited to join The Sun by editor Kelvin MacKenzie. There, he worked until 1994, when he left and joined News of the World. In 1995, he left and joined the Daily Mirror as the editor until 2004. In 2003, he presented a documentary series called The Importance of Being Famous. Through 2006, he worked as a judge on America's Got Talent as a replacement for Simon Cowell. He also appeared on Britain's Got Talent and The Celebrity Apprentice. Morgan was the winner of The Apprentice in 2008. Morgan describes himself as a close personal friend of Donald Trump, and often defends Trump on television, which has led to controversy and arguments with high-profile celebrities. Morgan joined the desk of Good Morning Britain in 2015.

Online Presence

Online, Morgan has a significant following. On Twitter, Morgan has 6.38 million followers.^[2] On Facebook^[3] he has 199,000 likes. Morgan has an extremely popular tweet. On September 2nd, 2012, Morgan tweeted "I want to die."^[4] The tweet has gained over 161,000 retweets and 117,000 likes (shown below). It has also been covered by Gawker^[5] and The Spinoff.^[6] It appears Morgan was tweeting about a recent soccer transaction.

Omarosa Allegation

On February 13th, 2018, Morgan posted an op-ed in The Daily Mail^[7] talking about former Apprentice contestant and White House employee Omarosa Manigault-Newman. In the op-ed, he called Omarosa a vile human and also said that she attempted to sleep with Morgan for power on the show. He recounts the proposal thusly:

'Piers, do you want a showmance?' 'A what?' I replied. 'A showmance. You know, a romance on the show – we get it on together. Happens all the time on Apprentice. Everyone has sex together. Then we can make lots of money out of it.’ I stared at her grasping, ferociously ambitious little eyes, and laughed: 'You must be joking, you deluded woman.' She didn't take it well. 'What are you? Gay?'

He then recounted a period of abuse Omarosa unleashed upon him where she mocked him for being divorced and questioned his sexuality.

#PapooseGate

On October 15th, 2018, Morgan tweeted^[8] a photograph of James Bond-actor Daniel Craig carrying his baby in a papoose carrier, a small, fabric sling used to hold an infant to the carrier's chest. He captioned the image, "Oh 007.. not you as well?!!! #papoose #emasculatedBond." The tweet received a ratio of 16,000 comments to 1,100 retweets and 8,700 likes in two days (shown below).

People reacted negatively to Morgan's tweet, mocking him for the assertion that it is emasculating to for men to care for children (examples below, left and center). Captain America actor Chris Evans tweeted,^[9] "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." The tweet received more than 7,000 retweets and 620,000 likes in two days.

On October 17th, Piers Morgan hosted comedian Harry Hill on Good Morning Britain. During the segment, they discussed the comedy of pies. Hill made a whipped cream pie and said, What’s quite nice is to personalize the pie if you’re going to throw it at someone in particular. This pie is for all those men who wear papooses." As he said it, he hit Morgan in the face with the pie.

Twitter published two Moments pages about controversy and reaction to the tweet.^[10][11] Several media outlets covered the controversy, including The Daily Dot,^[12] HuffPost,^[13] Vox^[14] and more.

Related Memes

What's Piers Morgan Saying?

What's Piers Morgan Saying refers to a series of image macros in which people captioned a screenshot of Piers Morgan with humorous quotes that Morgan looks like he's saying. On May 17th, 2017, Piers Morgan interviewed a gender non-binary couple on Good Morning Britain (shown below). During the interview, Piers conducted the talk with his arms crossed.

Following the interview, Twitter user @joegolby tweeted a screenshot of Piers (shown below) from the show with the caption "'well i'm sorry madame but it simply won't do. we asked for butter and this is clearly margarine. we shan't be settling the bill.'" The tweet received more than 300 retweets and 1,200 likes.

Various Examples

Piers Morgan Rimming Donald Trump Cartoon

Piers Morgan Rimming Donald Trump Cartoon refers to an illustration of British talk show host Piers Morgan which his face buried in the bare butt of President Donald Trump that Morgan tweeted several times in outrage, claiming it was a double standard that the BBC could broadcast that image but would not do the same if it was of high-profile women. That Morgan repeatedly tweeted the image drew reactions online, as people found the event humorous. On February 2nd, 2018, British satirical news television show The Mash ran a segment about Morgan's interview with Trump prior to the President's State of the Union address. Commentator Rachel Parris showed the body language in a typical political interview with an illustration of a politician and journalist talking to each other face to face, then compared it to Morgan's interview with Trump with a picture of Morgan's face in Trump's butt.

The day the segment aired, Morgan tweeted the image three separate times while decrying a double standard, saying high-profile women would not be portrayed in such a photo (shown below).

Search Interest

External References