It may be over a year since he dramatically left Good Morning Britain but Piers Morgan isn't quite done talking about it as he reignites his exit feud ahead of launching his new venture.
The controversial journalist and presenter marked the anniversary of his storm-out on the ITV news programme last month, which ultimately lead to his permanent departure.
Fans and viewers will remember that Piers received a huge backlash to comments he made about the Duchess of Sussex following her explosive, tell-all interview with Oprah Winfrey. Then, on the following day's episode of GMB back in March 2021, Piers became embroiled in a heated debate after he refused to believe claims made by Meghan Markle.
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The show's weatherman Alex Beresford confronted Piers over his comments about the Duchess of Sussex when he dismissed her claims that she suffered suicidal thoughts and struggled with her mental health after joining the royal family. The row, in which Alex told Piers his behaviour towards Meghan was 'absolutely diabolical', caused Piers to storm off the set and hours later, his exit from the ITV news programme was announced.
His swift exit came after his rant about Meghan's comments on the ITV news programme received the most complaints to Ofcom in a decade - with more than 57,000 people lodging a complaint. However, six months after the episode in question, Ofcom said that GMB was not in breach of the broadcasting code over Piers' comments about the Duchess of Sussex’s interview with the US chat show host.
But now, Piers has said his departure from ITV over comments about the Duchess of Sussex was a "farce" as he prepares to launch fledgling news channel TalkTV. The channel will launch with shows from Piers, Sharon Osbourne, and Tom Newton Dunn on Monday, April 25.
"I thought the whole thing was a farce, and I’m delighted that actually as a result of the farce, we’ve ended up with a whole network which is now dedicated to preventing that kind of farce from recurring," Piers has said in an interview with Metro.co.uk.
"You shouldn’t be shamed or vilified or cancelled for having an opinion unless you genuinely are spewing hateful bigoted stuff," he added. "I don’t intend to do that; I’ve never done that before in my broadcasting time. I want to be a broad church to any kind of view."
TalkTV, the newest venture from News UK, will air on linear TV platforms as well as online services such as Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV and YouTube. The show will use News UK’s stable of journalists including The Times’ political team, The Sun’s showbiz desk and talkSPORT correspondents.
Piers will appear on his global show Uncensored at 8pm on April 25, broadcasting from studio facilities in Ealing, west London, and has previously said he wants to “annoy all the right people” and “cancel that cancel culture which has infected societies around the world”.
The comments were featured in the first promo for his new TalkTV show which was released early last month. In the clip, Piers can be seen watching footage of him storming off the set of GMB as he says he was "forced to leave a job that I loved at the peak of its success, for having the audacity to express an honestly held opinion. This shouldn’t happen in any democracy supposedly built on the principles of free speech and freedom of expression."
