More than two years have passed since Piers Morgan sensationally bowed out of presenting Good Morning Britain, after his comments about Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s Oprah Winfrey interview sparked an Ofcom furore.
Well, whilst plenty has changed since the doomsday of March 2021, one thing that has remained constant is Piers Morgan’s unsparing tirades about the Sussexes, both in the media and via social media. His most recent controversy happened this week, when he 'named' two royals allegedly at the centre of a racism scandal concerning Meghan Markle and Prince Harry on his Talk TV show, Piers Morgan Uncensored. The move has sparked significant backlash online.
Allow us to explain. This week, Omid Scobie's book, Endgame, was reportedly pulled from the shelves after it appeared to name 'two senior royals' alleged to have asked questions about the skin colour of Prince Harry and Meghan's baby. Scobie has addressed the claims, saying that a ‘translation error’ had led to a name featuring in the passage of the book, which had been shared with journalists in the Netherlands.
Of course, Piers' obsession with Meghan Markle goes even further back. Who could ever forget his infamous storm out of the studio, following a heated exchange of words with fellow presenter Alex Beresford over the Duchess? After Piers had taken his hate campaign against the couple to new extremes - by proclaiming he 'did not believe a word' of Meghan’s claims in their Oprah interview, including her struggles with mental health – Alex duly noted, ‘I understand that you've got a personal relationship with Meghan Markle, or had one, and she cut you off. She's entitled to cut you off. Has she said anything about you since she cut you off? I don't think she has. But yet you continue to trash her.’
Earlier this year, the former royals’ bombshell Netflix documentary and Harry’s history-making memoir Spare also became a gateway for Piers to launch a fresh load of scathing attacks - although an excuse is not often required. He savagely branded the first three episodes of their docuseries ‘worse than Keeping Up With The Kardashians' and as for the Prince’s tome, Piers was less than constructive.
‘Rather than buy it and feather [Harry’s] greedy little nest, do what I’m going to do right now. Take Spare and chuck it where it belongs, in the bin.’
You shouldn’t have to scroll far to find Meghan’s name laced amongst Piers’ tweets. Only in June, he was behind a sarcastic message about being ‘distraught’ over the cancellation of her podcast Archetypes.
Then in May, unable to keep the couple’s names from rolling off his tongue, he slammed them to Young America’s Foundation.
Calling Harry – in what he thought was a 'polite' reference - ‘not the brightest bulb in the tulip patch’, Piers proceeded to lambast Meghan as ‘manipulative’ before giving an unsolicited take on her current family dynamics.
‘Now she’s wrestled Harry away from his family,’ he said. ‘How happy they really are in this mansion in California, when they have no connection now with any of their family bar one or two people… I find it very hard to believe that makes anybody happy.’
In the same breath, Piers acknowledged that whilst this is ‘sad’, the ‘damage they’ve done to the monarchy’ also makes him ‘quite angry’.
And in one of his final, sweeping statements, he generalised that the British people are ‘sick and tired of them’.
It's about time we get to the bottom of this strange obsession he has with her.
Why does Piers Morgan not like Meghan Markle?
It’s not just a case of a journalist honing in on one woman, it’s more than that. Piers met Meghan in 2016 after he followed her on Twitter after she messaged him saying she was a fan of his. The pair developed a virtual friendship before meeting for a drink in London when Meghan visited the UK to watch Serena Williams at Wimbledon.
‘We had two hours in the pub, she had a couple of dirty martinis and pints - we got on brilliantly,’ he said of the meeting during an appearance on the Late Late Show. ‘Then I put her in a cab, and it turns out it was the cab that took her to a party where she met Prince Harry. The next night they had a solo dinner and that was the last I ever heard from Meghan Markle. I never heard from her again - Meghan Markle ghosted me.’
From his retelling of the encounter – from his perspective – where he says she looked ‘a million dollars’ and ‘something special’, it seems as if he was hurt that someone he had developed a friendship with was no longer interested.
Of course, it makes perfect sense from Meghan’s side. You go to London and are set up with Prince Harry, you probably don’t want to divulge everything you’ve been up to to one of the most notorious tabloid reporters in the UK.
We can only imagine Harry’s face when Meghan might’ve told him about her developing friendship with Piers Morgan, given how tabloid-averse he was and the fact the couple clearly wanted to keep their relationship private at first. He would've been right too, since Piers wrote a tell-all article about his 'two hours in the pub with Harry's new girlfriend' the week Harry and Meghan went public.
And yet, it was the fact Meghan distanced herself from Piers after meeting Harry that made him conclude she isn’t a genuine person. ‘I really liked her, this is why it hurts,’ he said. ‘I just think she’s a slight social climber I’m afraid.’
His entire basis of disliking her comes from her unwillingness to entertain a relationship with him.
The word ‘slight’ has certainly snowballed in the last few years as Piers continues to grieve the rejection from Markle. At first, he continued to tweet about her calling her his 'friend', saying his 'sole interest' in Pippa Middleton's wedding was seeing what Meghan would wear also tweeting her to ask for an invite to the wedding when it was announced.
When he clearly wasn't getting what he wanted in return, he seemed to switch - no longer referring to her as 'the friend' he professed throughout 2016-17, but a 'grasping, selfish, scheming Kardashian wannabe' and 'narcissistic whiny brat'.
That’s what’s concerning about this whole thing, isn’t it? Piers Morgan has a platform of millions to bad-mouth a woman whose criticism came from the fact she ghosted him after meeting a literal Prince. His entire basis of disliking her comes from her unwillingness to entertain a friendship or romantic relationship with him – and it's a phenomenon women know too well.
So often when women distance themselves from a man, or start dating someone new, the men who once proclaimed you were 'brilliant' seem to despise you, suddenly being downright rude in social events or even spreading rumours to your friendship group about you. The rejection makes them bitter, it's classic toxic masculinity except this time, it impacts everyone.
Because for Piers, the 'friendship group' he's spreading hate to is the entire UK public. And he continues to, despite the backlash and the fact that the wider vitriol against her had a harrowing impact on her mental health.
And what is he gaining? What is he fighting so hard for? The right NOT to critique the royal family? In his extreme attempts to quell Meghan and Harry’s experience – which literally only they have – all he seems to want is to silence allegations of racism against the monarchy from the only biracial woman who has a first-hand experience of being part of it. As Trisha Goddard implied so eloquently last year, why on earth would we listen to a white man with no part in the royal family, over a Black woman whose been in it? His obsession with silencing her must end, perhaps one of his big pay cheques can go towards counselling for his clearly unresolved issues with women that reject him.
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