Piers Morgan

Piers Stefan Pughe-Morgan (/pɪərs/; né O'Meara; 30 March 1965) is an English broadcaster, journalist, writer, and television personality.

Morgan began his Fleet Street career in 1988, becoming a writer and editor for several British tabloids, including The Sun, News of the World, and the Daily Mirror. In 1994, aged 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. From 2006 to 2007, he was the editorial director at First News. On television, Morgan has hosted his own talk shows Piers Morgan's Life Stories (2009–present) and Piers Morgan Live (2011–2014), co-presented the ITV Breakfast programme Good Morning Britain (2015–2021) with Susanna Reid, and judged on the talent competition shows America's Got Talent (2006–2011) and Britain's Got Talent (2007–2010). In 2008, he won the seventh season of the US Celebrity Apprentice. Morgan has written eight books, including four volumes of memoirs.

While working at the Daily Mirror, he was in charge during the period that the paper was implicated in the phone hacking scandal. In 2011, Morgan denied having ever hacked a phone or "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". Morgan's outspoken views and controversial comments on Good Morning Britain led Ofcom to adjudicate on multiple occasions. On 9 March 2021, ITV announced that Morgan decided to leave the programme with immediate effect, following negative comments he made about Meghan, Duchess of Sussex in the days after the U.S. airing of the Oprah with Meghan and Harry interview. Ofcom received over 57,000 complaints from viewers, including a complaint from the Duchess of Sussex herself.