The Problem with Piers

Piers Morgan loves to hear himself talk. So much so that on a Monday broadcast of Good Morning Britain the 55-year-old news presenter and media personality made certain that he was first to speak on the controversial “Harry & Meghan” interview, wherein, among other things, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex accused the Royal Family of racist indiscretions.

“I’m sickened by what I just had to watch,” he says, not because of the Queen but because of Markle.

“Okay,” co-host Susanna Reid butts in, obviously uncomfortable. “People might be upset, and moved, by what they heard.”

Her tone is pleading, de-escalating, but her halting attempt at damage control is incessantly interrupted by Morgan:

“No, no. You [Susanna] can talk in a minute.”

Morgan then goes on to speak for nearly double that time, his only pauses being clip showings, and Reid’s few demands for clarification on his perspective of Harry and Meghan’s sit-down with Oprah Winfrey, which he described as a “trash-a-thon” of the royal family and “completely self-serving.”

Morgan’s comments were quickly condemned in the public, who many viewed (including Markle herself) as unsympathetic to the plight of suicidal individuals.

The next day, Morgan invites guest presenter Alex Beresford onto the program. At one point Beresford, who is of mixed race, can hardly go twenty seconds without Piers trying to get a word in edgewise. But Beresford holds fast, and provides his own impassioned perspective and experiences with racism.

“I completely respect that,” says Morgan, poorly wording his expression of empathy. “That’s why I wanted to get you on the program today.” He then adds, in a defensive display of his grace: “It was my suggestion to have you on to talk about it.”

If you need any further proof that Morgan is something of an ass, then you need not look anywhere other than just moments earlier in this very same segment where, in a media-darling moment, Morgan stormed off the stage in a huff after Beresford suggested some connection between Morgan’s reaction to the interview and his own relationship with Meghan Markle.

“I’m sorry, but, Piers spouts off on a regular basis,” says Bereford, “and we all have to listen.” He called Morgan’s tantrum “diabolical behavior.”

I’d have to agree. This incident is just one in a series of problematic decisions that Morgan has made throughout his career. He once described protestors at the Women’s March on Washington as “rabid” and vacuous.” He has, live on air, spoken pejoratively of the Chinese language.

And, after once receiving as many as 1,095 complaints through the Office of Communications for haughtily identifying as a “two-spirit penguin,” Morgan failed to apologize for any transphobia and instead said that he was “quite pleased” to have received such a significant backlash.

Yes, Morgan loves attention, and the world keeps giving it to him. The man has maintained a solid media presence in the past three decades, and just today on Wednesday March 10, two days after this new Markle-debacle began, Piers quite readily addressed the press that had gathered around him outside his home, following the announcement that he had been removed from Good Morning Britain.

But I personally am most disturbed that, in greeting the press this way, Morgan chooses to leave the house with his daughter. Cameras are clicking, shuttering and flashing, as several strangers surround a little girl because of her daddy’s doings. One reporter expresses weak concern over her presence.

“She doesn’t mind,” Morgan says, his daughter too shy to speak for herself. For her sake I hope papa Piers is right. Being exposed to that kind of frenzy would no doubt confuse any average child, but one must wonder if it isn’t so much that she doesn’t mind, and not that Morgan, as he has showed in the past, hasn’t a care in the world for emotional consequences.

For Pierce, bad publicity is good publicity, and whether it is in your guest’s moment that you boast of your own magnanimity, or continue with a situation though it may make your own child uncomfortable, you are displaying behavior which is symptomatic of narcissism.

Narcissistic personality disorder is a very real, unfortunate disease. I am not trained in psychology, so I cannot give Morgan an official diagnosis, but I think it is clear that when considering the man’s public record, he expresses an alarming amount of similar traits. And now that, in his moment to humble himself, he instead declares that he is “off to spend more time with [his] opinions,” it’s clear that whatever problem Morgan’s got, he’s not going to be making any efforts to get well soon.

Why should he? He still runs a column with the Daily Mail, and even ITV has still kept him on as host of Life Stories (though his future with the position remains unclear). Morgan, quite possibly a very sick man, is co-dependent on celebrity. It is his drug, and if we are to do anything to help rehabilitate him, we may need to cut him off—cold turkey.