Piers Morgan famously stormed off the set of Good Morning Britain and quit on Monday, after Meghan Markle filed a formal complaint with ITV.
In his rant prior to his departure from the show, Morgan, 55, referred to Markle as “Princess Pinocchio” – and he suggested she lied about being suicidal.
“I don’t believe almost anything that comes out of her mouth and I think the damage she’s done to the British monarchy and to the Queen at a time when Prince Philip is lying in hospital is enormous and frankly contemptible,” he said.
Following Morgan’s remarks on the show, Markle, 39, complained directly to ITV’s CEO Dame Carolyn McCall, the former boss of the Guardian newspaper, who signed off on the million-dollar deal to air Markle’s interview with Oprah Winfrey on the ITV Network.
In her complaint, Markle said Morgan’s views could upset people with mental health problems.
It is understood that ITV formally ordered Morgan to apologize to Markle, but he refused.
“I still don’t believe Meghan,” he told reporters on Tuesday. He suggested she is a narcissist who manipulates everyone to get what she wants.
“If I have to fall on my sword for expressing an honestly-held opinion about Meghan Markle and that diatribe of bilge that she came out within that interview, so be it. I think it’s fair to say, although the woke crowd will think that they’ve canceled me, I think they will be rather disappointed when I re-emerge.”
Later, he tweeted:
“On Monday, 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 [believe her]. If you did, OK. Freedom of speech is a hill I’m happy to die on. Thanks for all the love, and hate. I’m off to spend more time with my opinions.”
Morgan wasn’t the only public figure to criticize Markle. She was also slammed by her former “Suits” co-star Wendell Pierce during a radio interview in London.
Pierce lashed out at Markle, her husband Harry Windsor, and television mogul Oprah for causing a distraction by airing the bombshell interview during a pandemic.
“Today 3,000 people are going to die in America from Covid,” he said, per the Daily Mail. “A couple of hundred people are going to die, even this hour, in the UK.”
Pierce, 54, suggested that Markle was wrong for claiming to be suicidal in the midst of worldwide death.
He said he found it “quite insensitive and offensive that we are all complicit in this sort of palace gossip in the midst of so much death. I think it is insignificant.”
The actor clarified that he was criticizing “everyone” involved in the interview, including Winfrey, television networks CBS and ITV, Harry, Markle and the Palace.
He also insisted that the royal family shouldn’t engage in such gossip, but should instead “focus on the throes of death that we’re in.”
Later, Pierce tweeted that the British monarchy is historically racist.
“The British monarchy is archaic in my American eyes. If slavery, colonialism and apartheid didn’t educate you that they are racist, you failed history.”
He also clarified that he supports mental health issues, and that he is “in no way … insensitive to suicide.”
“Unfortunately my family has suffered the pain of losing someone to suicide. I never was interviewed by the Daily Mail and their story manipulated my words in a radio interview,” Pierce said. “As I told Meghan, I support her and wish her all the best.”
