PIERS MORGAN: The REAL truth. Writing for the first time about his dramatic exit from GMB

MONDAY, MARCH 8 

A NUCLEAR BOMB DROPPED ON THE ROYALS

Got to the Good Morning Britain studios at 4am to watch Oprah Winfrey‘s much-hyped interview with Prince Harry and his wife Meghan which just finished airing in the US.

Ninety jaw-dropping minutes later, I raced round to Susanna Reid’s dressing room and we exclaimed in unison: ‘My God…’

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex just dropped a nuclear-sized scandal bomb into the very heart of the Royal Family.

Their shocking claims of racism at the Palace concerning their son Archie, and an alleged refusal by Royal staff to let Meghan receive treatment for suicidal thoughts in case it hurt the Royal brand, are so incendiary that they could inflict irreparable damage on the Monarchy.

But were they true?

The longer the interview went on, the less I believed.

For example, Meghan said she and Harry got secretly married three days before their wedding, in a tiny service officiated by the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Really? So, the marriage we all watched was a sham? And Britain’s most senior clergyman was in on it, performing an illegal ceremony in a garden?

Equally implausible was Meghan’s insistence she never checked out Harry online when they first met or had much interest in his family (her old friends previously revealed how fascinated she’d been with the Royals and Diana in particular), and her claim that her passport was taken away. How then did she make all her endless foreign trips?

But far more serious was the sensational implication that Archie was barred from being a Prince because of his skin colour.

It sounded complete nonsense when she said it, and it is; he’s not a Prince because, technically, the great grandchildren of the Monarch are not bestowed with titles ‘Prince’ or ‘Princess’ unless they’re in the direct line to the throne. 

This rule applies regardless of the child’s mother’s ethnicity.

So, the most serious assertion, one that has already sent racially charged America into a tailspin of outrage, was a falsehood presumably designed to cause maximum harm to the Royals.

And for all their guff in the interview about supporting the Queen, it’s the Monarch who decides such titles so they were effectively accusing Harry’s grandmother and Britain’s Head of State of being racist.

This was a disgraceful betrayal, as was Meghan’s attack on the Duchess of Cambridge for making her cry (Kate’s never said a bad word about her sister-in-law in public), Harry’s bleating about his father supposedly cutting off his money supply and security, and their sustained bitter attack on the Royal institution whose titles they greedily exploit for massive commercial gain.

I expected such disingenuous. self-serving wrecking-ball stuff from a social-climbing Hollywood actress like Ms Markle, but for Harry to publicly shred his family and the Monarchy like this, while Prince Philip was seriously ill in hospital, is so out of character for a man who once bravely served his Queen and country in war. He can’t be happy doing this, surely?

‘I’m angry to the point of boiling over,’ I raged when we got on air. ‘I’m sickened by what I’ve just had to watch.’

‘OK,’ said Susanna, ‘but some people might be upset and moved by what they’ve just heard.’

She cited Meghan’s mental health claims, and replayed the clip of her saying: ‘I just didn’t want to be alive any more… I went to the institution and said I needed to go somewhere to get help and I was told that I couldn’t because it wouldn’t be good for the institution.’ This seemed utterly incredible to me.

We’re supposed to believe Meghan Markle told Palace aides she was suicidal and desperately needed help, but was informed she couldn’t have any because it might be bad for the Royal brand?

And if she was suicidal, then why didn’t Harry get her the urgent help she needed? 

He’s attached to some of Britain’s biggest mental health charities and has proudly spoken of getting discreet help for himself in the past.

‘OK,’ I said, ‘let’s have the names. Who did you go to, what did they say to you?’ Then I made a more general observation: ‘I’m sorry, I don’t believe a word she says.’

‘Well, that’s a pathetic reaction to someone who’s expressed those thoughts,’ snapped back Susanna.

But it was an honest reaction, not to whether she was feeling suicidal – only she knows how she felt – but to the idea that she was banned from getting treatment. 

It was also reflective of my general sense of disbelief about the whole interview; once you know someone’s lying about some things, how can you believe anything else they’re saying without hard evidence to support it?

I wasn’t the only one feeling this way.

Later in the show, black British Army war hero Sergeant Johnson Beharry – the last person to win the Victoria Cross – said of the other racism claim, that a Royal spoke derogatorily to Harry about what skin colour Archie might have: ‘I don’t believe that happened. 

‘If it happened, then why don’t they explain it? Who said it, where did it happen?’ 

But other black guests attacked me for questioning Meghan’s word, using my own skin colour as a weapon.

Dr Shola Mos-Shogbamimu called me a ‘liar’ and a ‘disgrace’ and said: ‘You constantly use your platform as a wealthy white privileged man with power and influence to aggravate and escalate the bigoted, sexist, racist and misogynist attacks on Meghan Markle.’

Trisha Goddard branded me a ‘bully’ and said: ‘Sorry Piers, you don’t get to call out what is and isn’t racism to black people. 

‘You can call out all the other stuff you want, but leave the racism stuff to us, eh?’

So, because I’m white, I’m not allowed to doubt the validity of Meghan Markle’s two racism claims against the Royal Family, one of which has already been proved to be based on a lie?

It was the fieriest ever episode of Good Morning Britain, but very raw, real television too. 

It’s what we do best, passionately debating the news just as families, friends and work colleagues will doubtless be doing today about the interview.

Soon, the hashtag #AbolishTheMonarchy was trending on Twitter, an indication of just how damaging the Sussexes’ claims have been.

I was trending too, with people saying I was ‘racist’ and ‘mocking mental illness’ by disbelieving Meghan’s claims, and demanding I be fired. 

It didn’t matter that I’ve never said anything racist about her or that my only comments about her race have been to repeatedly say how great it was that a bi-racial woman married into the Royal Family.

No, it appears that questioning Meghan’s fork-tongued ‘truth’ is now a racist hate crime.

Whereas her spray-gunning her family on global TV, just as she allegedly spray-gunned her young female Palace staff who’ve accused her of serious bullying, is a brave victim finally finding her silenced voice.

Meghan’s had no worse media treatment than other Royal brides such as Diana, Fergie, Kate, Camilla or even that other Monarchy-rattling American divorcee, Wallis Simpson.

But she’s the first to claim negative press has been motivated by racism, and it’s a very dangerous charge to make with so little to back it up.

The clearly orchestrated social media pile-on against me intensified through the afternoon.

I’ve always subscribed to the ‘if you dish it out, you’ve got to take it’ philosophy.

But my three sons told me they too are all being targeted, and sent me screenshots of venomous abuse and threats of violence towards them, which made my stomach churn, especially as police are already investigating a death threat made to me and my eldest boy Spencer last month. 

None of them even care about Meghan Markle, let alone agree with my views on her. Yet the Twitter troll mob has found them guilty by association.

One troll vowed to murder me in front of them, and added: ‘When your dad dies, the world will have a party.’

To compound my unease, the mental health charity Mind – which gave me an award in 2012 for promoting mental health issues in Life Stories interviews with troubled stars such as Frank Bruno and Paul Gascoigne – issued a statement saying it was ‘disappointed and concerned to see Piers Morgan’s comments on not believing Meghan’s experiences about suicidal thoughts’.

It ended with the ominously threatening words: ‘We are in conversations with ITV about this.’

ITV asked me to clarify what I meant on tomorrow’s show, which I’m happy to do as it’s been deliberately misconstrued to suggest I don’t think victims of mental illness should be believed.

I was told I didn’t need to apologise.

Alex Beresford, GMB’s occasional stand-in weatherman, messaged me saying I needed to better understand Meghan Markle’s racism claims from the perspective of mixed-race people like himself.

I told the team to get him in tomorrow so we can debate it on air.

TUESDAY, MARCH 9 

WHY I WAS LEFT WITH NO CHOICE BUT TO QUIT 

A bad night of broken sleep.

It’s been a strange, stressful 12 months for everyone, and I’ve been in the thick of all the increasingly toxic debates – whether about the pandemic, or those other hot-button issues of Brexit, Trump and the Sussexes.

Normally, I revel in the noise. But unregulated social media, as anyone in the public eye will confirm, has got increasingly vicious and nasty.

When we got on air, I was tired and agitated.

Alex Beresford seemed equally uptight and launched into a very personal attack.

‘I understand that you don’t like Meghan Markle,’ he said, ‘you’ve made it so clear a number of times on this programme. 

‘I understand you’ve got a personal relationship with Meghan Markle or had one and she cut you off… she’s entitled to cut you off if she wants to.

‘Has she said anything about you since she cut you off? I don’t think she has, but yet you continue to trash her…’

As he delivered his censorious lecture, implying my only motivation for disbelieving Ms Markle’s outlandish interview claims was because she ‘ghosted’ me four years ago after we’d been friendly for 18 months – I genuinely couldn’t care less about that, but it was informative as to her character, especially when I saw her do the same thing to many other people, including her own father – I felt the steam rising inside me.

I don’t mind outside guests trying to make a name for themselves by whacking me like this, but I wasn’t going to sit there and take it from one of my own team, especially someone who I’ve gone out of my way to help whenever he’s asked me for advice about his career.

Realising I might say something I’d regret, I decided to leave the studio to cool down.

As I walked off, Alex doubled down: ‘This is pathetic. Absolutely diabolical behaviour. 

‘I’m sorry but Piers spouts off on a regular basis and we all have to sit here and listen. From 6.30 to 7am yesterday, it was incredibly hard to watch. 

‘He has the ability to come in here and talk from a position that he doesn’t fully understand…’

I didn’t hear any more of his diatribe, as I was out the door and heading for my dressing room.

I knew it wasn’t a good look, the great snowflake-basher running away from confrontation. And on reflection, I shouldn’t have done it.

But in the heat of the moment, in my rather strained state of mind, this seemed the less worse option.

A horrified Susanna quickly followed me out and after an animated exchange persuaded me to come back out.

So, I did, and Alex and I then had a lengthy conversation about race.

‘I don’t feel you’re a racist’, he told me, which was like saying: ‘I don’t think you beat your wife.’

But he insisted that even if Meghan’s claim about Archie being barred from Princehood because of his skin colour is untrue, it’s still her ‘lived experience’ so should be respected.

But that’s ridiculous; you can’t have a ‘lived experience’ of racism when the fact you’re basing it on is false. 

Or rather, you can, but it’s not a real one and nobody should be compelled to believe it.

Sadly, this is where we’ve now arrived in society: the truth can be whatever someone decides it is, so Meghan Markle must be believed because it’s ‘her truth’. 

And if you don’t believe her, you’re a racist.

Later, we interviewed her estranged father Thomas, who she hasn’t spoken to since 2018 and who she’s now accused of ‘betrayal’ in a new interview clip released by CBS.

‘I genuinely can’t imagine doing anything to intentionally cause pain to my child,’ said the woman trashing her family and her husband’s family on prime-time TV.

Mr Markle denied there was racism at the heart of the Monarchy, saying: ‘I don’t think the British Royal Family are racist at all.’

Of course, he was then abused on Twitter too.

Yes, a man who married a black woman, and brought up their bi-racial daughter on his own for many years, was attacked for not understanding Meghan’s ‘lived experience’ of racism, and therefore, de facto, exposing himself as a racist.

Just absurd.

As requested by ITV, I clarified my position on mental health by saying: ‘I still don’t believe what Meghan Markle says generally in this interview, and I have serious concerns about the veracity of a lot of what she said. 

‘But let me just state my position on mental illness and on suicide. These are clearly extremely serious things and should be taken extremely seriously and if someone is feeling that way, they should get the treatment and the help that they need every time. 

‘Every time. And if they belong to an institution like the Royal Family, they should seek that help and be given it. It’s not for me to question if she felt suicidal. 

‘I am not in her mind and that is for her to say. 

‘My real concern was a disbelief frankly, and I’m prepared to be proven wrong on this, that she went to a senior member of the Royal household and told them she was suicidal and was told she could not have any help because it would be a bad look for the family. 

‘If that is true, a) that person should be fired and b) The Royal Family have serious questions that need to be answered.’

This, I assumed, would end that matter.

But ITV’s annual results were announced this morning and when our CEO, Dame Carolyn McCall, was asked by journalists if I would lose my job, she replied: ‘We are dealing with that as we speak.’

Uh-oh. That was not a denial.

She also declared about Meghan: ‘I completely believe what she says.’

Other ITV executives suggested to me that I should now issue an apology to calm things down.

But I don’t believe Meghan, so why would I apologise?

As I mused over this conundrum, GMB’s ratings for yesterday came in and were the highest in our history, breaking a new record we set only last week.

The show’s on fire, in every sense.

But the flames are now raging uncontrollably towards me.

To compound my growing twitchiness, I got a text from my old foe Jeremy Clarkson that read: ‘I am completely on your side.’

Oh s**t. This must be more serious than I thought. Mid-afternoon, Kevin Lygo, ITV’s Director of Television, who I’d spoken to several times since yesterday, rang to say we were now ‘on the cliff edge’ and either I apologised, or I would have to leave GMB.

I appreciated his directness – we’ve always had a very open, honest and humorous relationship – and said I’d call him back when I’d thought it over.

I went for a walk and spoke to a couple of close, trusted friends.

One thought I should just apologise, take the hit and move on.

The other was emphatic: don’t apologise.

I pondered what my manager John Ferriter, who guided my career for 12 years and persuaded me to do GMB but who sadly died 16 months ago, would have said.

‘Talk to me, John,’ I muttered, in a moment reminiscent of that scene in Top Gun where Maverick begs his dead buddy Goose to guide him on what to do after he bugs out of aerial combat with the Russians.

All I heard back was John’s regular refrain: ‘Trust your gut!’

Suddenly, I reached a moment of total gut clarity: f**k it, I wasn’t going to apologise for disbelieving Meghan Markle, because the truth is that I don’t believe Meghan Markle.

And in a free, democratic society, I should be allowed not to believe someone, and to say that I don’t believe them.

That, surely, is the very essence of freedom of speech?

If I said I now believed Meghan, I would be lying to the audience, the very thing I’ve accused her of doing.

And even if I did apologise, that wouldn’t be the end of it. The woke brigade would keep coming for me, demanding I apologise for everything else they find offensive – which of course, is absolutely everything.

I called Kevin back, said I wouldn’t be apologising, and we agreed I’d leave GMB with immediate effect. 

Then I went home to wait for the news to break, which was a weird sensation.

The best way I’ve heard it described was by my former America’s Got Talent judging panel partner David Hasselhoff, who I once sat with as the clock ticked down to a humiliating leaked video of him drunk hitting the airwaves.

‘I feel like that gong the guy used to beat at the start of every Rank movie,’ he smiled, ruefully. ‘Waiting to be hit so hard it clangs.’

At 6.15pm, the statement was released: ‘Following discussions with ITV, Piers Morgan has decided now is the time to leave Good Morning Britain. 

‘ITV has accepted this decision and has nothing further to add.’

My phone erupted like a firecracker. It’s always very interesting to see who contacts you in such moments, or publicly supports you, and even more interesting to note who doesn’t.

First out of the blocks was Sharon Osbourne, with whom I worked for four years on AGT with The Hoff.

‘I am with you,’ she tweeted. ‘I stand by you. People forget that you’re paid for your opinion and that you’re just speaking your truth.’

This took real guts, knowing it would enrage the ultra-woke crowd in Hollywood where she lives and works.

‘When stuff like this happens,’ I replied, ‘true friends run towards you, fake friends run away.’

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 10 

I LEARN MEGAN MADE A FORMAL COMPLAINT 

Woke at 4am to more than 1,000 emails, texts and WhatsApp messages from all over the world.

Most were emphatically in agreement with what I’d said, while some disagreed but were equally emphatic about my right to say it.

‘Whatever the rights and wrongs,’ said Bear Grylls, ‘you’ve always been unapologetically yourself, and authenticity is a rare commodity.’

At 6.30am, I turned on GMB to see what my ‘TV wife’ Susanna would say about our sudden divorce.

Stony-faced, she read a short, rather frosty statement: ‘Piers and I have disagreed on many things and that dynamic was one of the things viewers loved about the programme. 

‘He is without doubt an outspoken, challenging, opinionated, disruptive broadcaster.

‘He has many critics, and he has many fans. You will know that I disagreed with him about Meghan’s interview. 

‘He himself clarified his comments about her mental health on the show yesterday. There are many voices on GMB, and everyone has their say.

‘But now Piers has decided to leave the programme. Some of you may cheer and others will boo. 

‘He has been my presenting partner for more than five years and during Brexit and the pandemic and other issues he has been a voice for many of you, and a voice that many of you have railed against. 

‘It is certainly going to be very different but shows go on and so on we go.’

Jeez, even my real ex-wife talks more fondly about me than that (and, in fact, did so overnight in a very supportive message).

I got an instant flurry of new texts from bemused friends asking if we’d fallen out.

We haven’t. But I suspect Susanna’s feeling angry and sad at me leaving just when the show’s soared to new audience heights, concerned for her own future, fearful of troll abuse for publicly backing me (she’s had a repulsive barrel-load of that over the years just for sitting next to me), and general discombobulation at the dramatic turn of events.

I hope we stay friends because Susanna’s a decent person and we’ve been through a lot together. 

There aren’t many women I’ve seen hundreds of times at 5am in their curlers and dressing gowns.

Elise, my nine-year-old daughter, wanted me to walk her to school.

‘You may as well make yourself useful, Dada,’ she giggled, ‘because you’ve got nothing else to do.’

We emerged from the house to a barrage of photographers and TV camera crews.

‘I believe in freedom of speech,’ I said, ‘and the right to be allowed to have an opinion. If people want to believe Meghan Markle, that’s entirely their right.

‘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. 

‘So, 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 with in that interview, so be it.’

Mid-morning, ITV News Royal Editor Chris Ship reported that Meghan had filed a formal complaint about me on Monday, direct to Carolyn McCall.

I wasn’t told this.

Later, my sons said there had been a dramatic change in mood since my resignation and statement, and people were now bombarding them with support.

‘Getting loads like this,’ said Spencer, forwarding a message that read: ‘So gutted your dad’s left GMB. I am actually crying. I suffer from depression and your dad makes me laugh every single Mon/Tues/Weds morning… I would honestly go as far as to say he kept me going on days I felt I couldn’t. I’m devastated.’

Meanwhile, ITV’s share price has plunged by five per cent since news of my departure from GMB broke, valuing me at £250 million, which is £52 million more than the world’s most expensive footballer, Neymar. 

That should come in handy in my future contract negotiations!

More satisfyingly, Good Morning Britain smashed our ratings record again yesterday, and we finally beat BBC Breakfast for the first time.

When I joined GMB in 2015, the BBC got three times our ratings and nobody apart from me ever thought we’d eclipse them.

Well, we did, on my very last day.

And it’s one of my proudest achievements.

THURSDAY, MARCH 11 

SUSANNAH AND I AGREE WE NEED A BOOZY LUNCH  

Susanna rang for a long clear-the-air chat.

She apologised for the tone of her chilly goodbye, which was for all the reasons I suspected, and I apologised for leaving her in the lurch so suddenly.

It was a good conversation, and we agreed that when the dust settles, we’ll have a long lunch to celebrate five extraordinary years.

‘It won’t be a teetotal one either,’ laughed Susanna, who gave up alcohol two years ago. ‘I’ll definitely need to get drunk after this…’

I’ve had nice messages from all the other GMB presenters, apart from Alex Beresford, and many of the wonderful production team, from camera operators and producers to make-up artists.

Some really moved me.

‘Gutted to hear this news,’ texted Dr Hilary Jones. ‘You hold politicians to account like no one else can. 

You support the underprivileged people with no voice. You are generous, hugely well researched and funny. 

My respect for you has grown exponentially this year and I shall miss you my friend. 

The country actually needs you even if some people don’t know it. We’ve lost our General and you are sadly missed already.’

Kevin Lygo got back in touch to say ITV would like me to continue doing other stuff for the network, including Life Stories, which I’m happy to do. 

I don’t have any problem with ITV, my problem is with the increasingly insidious woke cancel culture that’s now infesting all companies like ITV.

If allowed to continue unchecked, it will make it virtually impossible for anyone with an opinionated personality to survive in any workplace.

Kevin revealed it took precisely 17 minutes for the first application for my GMB job to arrive after the announcement I’d left, which we both found highly amusing.

I’m only surprised it took that long; television is full of happy smiley fakes who pretend to be your biggest fan to your face but who’d dance the tango on your grave if they thought it would get them more airtime.

SATURDAY, MARCH 13

On Tuesday, my book Wake Up – ironically, a clarion call to end woke nonsense and cancel culture! – was No 2,130 in the Amazon chart. Today, it went to No 1.

‘I’ve not seen anything like this before,’ said my HarperCollins publisher, Oli. ‘The people have spoken!’

They’re certainly speaking everywhere I go; I’ve never had so many members of the public come up to offer their support, toot their horns from cars, cabs, lorries and buses, or send me letters and gifts.

It’s been relentless, slightly insane, and very gratifying.

During a long walk in the park with Spencer and Elise yesterday, I was approached literally every two minutes, and everyone was on my side apart from one pinch-faced, Guardian-reader-looking lady who viewed me being mobbed and shouted: ‘YOU’RE ALL REVOLTING!’

That rare outburst of negativity was immediately mitigated by another woman moments later who shouted: ‘THE WHOLE OF SPAIN IS BEHIND YOU!’

Gracias!

Lorraine Kelly wrote in her Sun column today that I ‘roared into breakfast TV like a hyperactive Mary Poppins. 

‘There was never a spoonful of sugar to help his medicine go down… but I will miss his terrier-like pursuit of Government Ministers’.

I imagine most ministers celebrated my exit like the removal of an abscess from a rotten tooth.

But some are at least pretending to be disappointed.

‘I might be in a minority of politicians,’ texted Transport Secretary Grant Shapps, ‘but I was genuinely sorry to see you leave GMB!’

‘That’s very kind,’ I replied, ‘and I almost believe you…’

‘In fairness,’ he replied, ‘I never recall ending an interview with you feeling aggrieved. Just answer his questions, was my advice to colleagues.’

Well, quite.

Ironically, Prime Minister Boris Johnson, the man who ducked GMB for the past four years and even ran and hid in a fridge to avoid answering our questions, had finally agreed to an interview with me at No 10 next month.

That it won’t now happen is my only regret about leaving.

Of course, many people are thrilled I’ve gone.

‘Cry not for Piers Morgan,’ tweeted actor Patrick J. Adams, who played Meghan Markle’s lover in Suits, ‘there are plenty of bridges for him to find work under.’

‘Now you know what it feels like,’ tweeted former Dancing On Ice judge Jason Gardiner, ‘you pathetic man baby. Good riddance and may you find solace in oblivion.’

Well, I certainly know who I’ll find in pathetic oblivion if I ever get there, Jason!

‘Can we ever thank Meghan Markle enough?’ tweeted US comedienne Kathy Griffin, ‘I mean, this Piers Morgan demise is nothing short of delicious.’

John Cleese, a former comedian, said I should be jailed not fired, and begged me to sue him. 

I would if I thought the tiresome old bore could afford the settlement, but I don’t think he’s racked enough £337-a-pop video messages yet on celebrity shout-out site Cameo.

My favourite response came via the landlord of my local pub, the Scarsdale Tavern, who forwarded me an email from someone named Marie.

‘I know this may sound completely bizarre,’ she said, ‘however, my friends and I would like to pay for Piers Morgan’s first few drinks when he visits after lockdown.

‘We think the way he has been treated is an absolute scandal and would like to make this small gesture as a thank you for the way he has held the Government to account since the beginning of the pandemic and his support for NHS workers.’

See you after lockdown, Marie – but I’m paying.

SUNDAY, MARCH 14

Even Donald Trump has backed me.

The recently ousted President’s former adviser, Jason Miller, revealed Trump told him: ‘If you say anything negative about Meghan Markle you get cancelled… look at Piers, they tried to cancel him simply because he criticised Meghan Markle. She’s no good, I said it and now everybody is seeing it. I’m on team Piers.’

I’m not sure how helpful this late addition to my defence squad is…!

TUESDAY, MARCH 16

Oprah’s best friend Gayle King has revealed on US TV that Prince Charles and Prince William both phoned Harry to discuss the interview but the calls were ‘unproductive’.

It’s beyond parody that the Duke and Duchess of Privacy are continuing to leak such sensitive information about their own family to the media.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 17

TV regulator Ofcom has announced I’ve broken the all-time record number of complaints with 57,000, including one from Meghan Markle.

But more than 300,000 people have now signed petitions for me to get my job back.

A friend forwarded me an email from one of Britain’s top QCs.

‘If you happen to be speaking to Piers Morgan anytime soon,’ it read, ‘would you be good enough to make clear to him that 57,000 brainwashed idiots do not represent right-thinking people in this country? 

As it happens, I agree wholeheartedly with everything Piers said on this particular topic but that is not the point.

‘The views Piers expressed were legitimate and reasonable by reference to what was and what was not in the Winfrey interview. 

‘The idea that one is forbidden from holding and expressing those views simply because to do so involves doubting, however sincerely, allegations of racism or claims of mental illness is simply contemptible.

‘The inevitable consequence of such a prohibition is that so long as one complains of racism or mental illness one’s word must be accepted without question… If people like Piers are driven out of public debate, there will be no debate. 

‘There will be no probing, no questioning, no proper analysis – only the self-appointed thought police who have commandeered the airways and the cowed, literally silent majority.

‘I never thought to hear myself say this, but we need the Piers Morgans of this world more than ever.’

I chuckled at the last line, but I thought the QC’s summary of this farce is the best I’ve heard so far.

Imagine if we applied the Meghan ‘she must be believed’ Markle rule to other public figures?

I’m sure every Government Minister who came on GMB during the pandemic would claim they were speaking THEIR truth based on THEIR lived experience during the crisis.

Should I have automatically believed them? As former Conservative Minister Michael Portillo said to me: ‘I didn’t know that disbelieving Meghan was a sackable offence. Interesting. Presumably not believing Boris would not be?’

THURSDAY, MARCH 18

Sharon Osbourne is paying a heavy price in America for supporting me.

On her show The Talk she was confronted by black co-host Sheryl Underwood with the words: ‘What would you say to people who say that while you’re standing by your friend, you appear to be giving validation or a safe haven to something he has uttered that is racist?’

‘Tell me what he said that’s racist?’ retorted Sharon.

‘It is not the exact words of racism,’ said Underwood, ‘it’s the implication and reaction to it. To not want to address that because she is a black woman, and to try to dismiss it or make it seem less than what it is. That’s what makes it racist.’

‘I don’t understand,’ said a bemused Sharon. ‘If Piers doesn’t like someone, and they happen to be black, does that make him a racist?’

‘No,’ said Underwood.

‘Right, so why can’t it be he just doesn’t like her? Why does it have to be racist?’

Underwood didn’t answer.

Instead, she said: ‘I don’t want anybody here to watch this and think we’re attacking you for being racist.’

Sharon chuckled ruefully. ‘I think it’s too late, that seed’s already sown.’

Yes, it was, just as it had been so disingenuously sown about me.

Disgracefully, Sharon was bullied into making a grovelling public apology the following day for getting angry with Underwood, but of course, this hasn’t placated her woke tormentors from continuing to tear her to pieces.

Now, The Talk has been suspended as CBS ‘investigates’ Sharon’s behaviour.

She told me tonight she fears they’re trying to get rid of her, and said she’s had to hire extra security at her LA home after being bombarded with death threats. 

This new woke tyranny is as illiberal and dangerous as the fascism it professes to despise.

FRIDAY, MARCH 19

Teen Vogue’s new editor has been cancelled before she even started over offensive tweets she posted as a teenager. 

Alexi McCammond, now 27, repeatedly apologised in the past for the comments, but there’s no room for forgiveness or second chances in the intransigent unforgiving woke world, so she had to go.

As with what’s happening to Sharon, this illustrates why there was no point in me saying sorry and how demented cancel culture has become.

Do we really want to live in a world where anyone can have their careers destroyed for some dumb thing they said as a teenage kid?

SUNDAY, MARCH 21

People keep asking me what I’m going to do next, and honestly, I have no idea. However, a flower seller on Kensington High Street stopped me today to proclaim: ‘Piers, mate, you should be Prime Minister. We’d all vote for you. You stand up for what you believe in.’

Obviously, it’s a crazy idea.

I mean, who on earth would vote for a polarising, scandalous journalist with a posh name who refuses to apologise for anything…

THURSDAY, MARCH 25

Meghan Markle’s been forced to admit she and Harry didn’t get ‘secretly married’ three days before their wedding, after a newspaper published their marriage certificate proving the claim was a lie.

This prompted CNN to air a lengthy report on the interview’s blizzard of what they call ‘inconsistencies.’

It would seem the actual truth, as opposed to Meghan’s ‘truth’, is finally emerging.

Do I still have to believe her?

FRIDAY, MARCH 26

Sharon Osbourne’s quit The Talk, driven out for the crime of defending me, a friend she knows isn’t racist, from a co-worker saying I’m racist simply because I disbelieve Meghan Markle.

It’s outrageous, but what’s happened to Sharon and me in the past fortnight isn’t really about Ms Markle.

She’s just one of many whiny, privileged, hypocritical celebrities who now cynically exploit victimhood to suppress free speech, value their own version of the truth above the actual truth, and seek to cancel anyone that deviates from their woke world view or who dares to challenge the veracity of their inflammatory statements.

No, it’s about a far bigger issue than one delusional Duchess, and that’s everyone’s right to be free to express our honestly held opinions, forcefully and passionately if we feel like it.

As Winston Churchill said: ‘Some people’s idea of it [free speech] is that they are free to say what they like but if anyone else says anything back, that is an outrage.’

To be clear: I’m not a victim and I haven’t been cancelled.

In fact, in many ways this has been one of the most exciting and affirmative periods of my life.

But if our rights to free speech are denied, then democracy as we know it will die.

It’s time to cancel the cancel culture before it kills our culture.