could you do me a quick favor if you're

listening to this please hit the follow

or subscribe button it helps more than

you know and we invite subscribers in

every month to watch the show in person

opinions to me are the spice of life if

you don't have an opinion there's

something wrong with you i'm peters

morgan uncensored show some damn respect

why do you want to deport me am i

allowed to respond yet i'm a news junkie

and it started when i was six or seven i

mean as i got through my teens i became

very opinionated i read a report last

year said 33 million people in britain

are mentally ill no they're not it's

crap we're spending too much time

encouraging a kind of wallowing in

self-pity people will misunderstand the

use of the word but hang on hang up the

risk i see is being the judge of whether

someone's feelings are worthy of the

emotion

i'm done with this i left on a point of

principle and the principle was i'm

entitled to my opinion why should my

sons be exposed to death threats simply

for being my children cancer culture is

a virus as deadly over time as a

coronavirus the public wants someone to

cancel cancel culture i want to

stimulate debate and to get to some kind

of truth have you ever regretted

anything you've said

so without further ado

i'm stephen bartlett and this is the

diary of a ceo usa edition i hope

nobody's listening but if you are

then please keep this to yourself

[Music]

this stephen this is quite quite

interesting you're usually on the uh

i already feel uncomfortable right

i watch your stuff you're forensic you

know you go deep and i'm like i don't

know i don't really know why i'm doing

it other than at least one of my sons is

a massive fan of yours and said daddy

you've got to do this podcast everyone

listens to this podcast so whatever

you're doing

it's working so i'm here you make great

kids well thank you for being here um

the the thing i was thinking thinking

where do i start with this conversation

and honestly the the the center point of

my curiosity is how you came to be the

person you are today and i look through

your story especially your early years

the loss of your father

certain experiences you've had when

you're younger you're a self-aware guy

you're an honest man

what are the factors

at that pre-teen age that went into

making pierce morgan the man that we all

know is this media anomaly i'm a junkie

i'm a news junkie

and it started when i was six or seven

which is just weird i've had four kids

myself the idea of being six or seven

and being addicted to what's happening

in the world to news to newspapers i

used to sit and read the daily mail my

parents used to get the mail i used to

read it from cover to cover when i was

six or seven so from a very early age i

had that kind of

fascination and curiosity with what was

happening and i wanted to know what was

happening and what to think about it i

mean as i got through my teens i became

very opinionated you know to regularly

get thrown at my local pub on a saturday

night for getting drunk and disorderly

disorderly they meant just to opinion

they'd been too loud so i'd argue with

people and then it would get out of hand

and i'd be thrown out i always got

myself back in why why would you argue

with people uh because i used to feel

strongly about stuff you know people see

me hyperventilating about vegan sausage

rolls i think how can any sensible human

being in the world get so enraged by a

vegan sausage roll i don't know except

that when i was young i used to get

enraged by all sorts of things now not

to the point where i'd hit people

or you know

manifest itself in any sort of violence

but i would be

passionate about arguing and most of my

family are the same my grandmother was

very opinionated my mom's very

opinionated my siblings on they're

probably the quiet is one of the three

of us when we go out of all of us um so

opinions to me are the spice of life if

you don't have an opinion there's

something wrong with you to me you've

got to care about what's happening in

the world and you've got to work out

what you think about it and i

particularly think it's important now

and there's so much opinion flying

around that people go to the right

people so that they hear the right kind

of stuff because there's so much

nonsense being spewed into the sort of

twitter sphere and so on on facebook but

that's why i think your show is so

successful your podcast because then

people appreciate the more reasonable

take that you have on things and the way

you try and get to the truth about

people and about things

so

there's on one hand um

loving

to have a discussion and to have your

opinion be heard and and to convey

information and then there's this other

part which i tried to understand which

was you repeatedly said even at 16 and

17 years old that you liked being the

center of attention

so i'm like where does because that

feels like more of a psychological thing

a lot of people don't like being the

same i just wanted to be famous i used

to practice my autograph when i was a

kid why regularly i wanted to be

fabulous i used to collect autographs so

i was a massive cricket fan in

particular me and my brother used to go

and

stand outside pavilions at professional

games and wait for players to come out

and get ian botham's autograph rich's

autograph

and i used to practice mine then i began

writing to world leaders i've got all

these letters from my margaret thatcher

and ted heath when he was prime minister

and world leaders around the world i've

got letters from donald bradman you know

whole shaftland the greatest cricketer

that ever lived i used to just write to

him and used to write back so i used to

spend my entire time in weird

correspondence with the world's most

famous people and quietly thinking to

myself i'd love to be one of these

people must be great center of attention

everyone looking at you talking about

you good bad and ugly so yeah i mean

there are bits of paper at home that my

mum's kept with just endless best wishes

appears morgan best wishes i mean it

sounds ludicrous and extremely vain and

presumptuous of me but now i'm at the

stage where ironically i've got to a

stage where if in the old days i had

this level of recognition i'd be

starting autographs all the time but

nobody wants autographs anymore everyone

wants a selfie

so when i finally got there yeah

actually all the grass had gone out of

fashion it's now selfie time you're very

you're very honest about that a lot of

people wouldn't i don't think

i think 99 of my guests would not have

the whatever to say i wanted to be

famous and by the way most of them are

lying yeah right so i i like to think

that whether you love me or hate me i do

have a kind of brutal honesty about what

i've set out to achieve

what i have achieved what i've failed at

i don't try and sugarcoat things nor do

i try and pretend i'm something i'm not

you know you don't have to like me to

respect the fact i think that i speak my

mind i give honest opinions about stuff

they're not always opinions people agree

with but i want them to be i don't want

people to agree with me necessarily i

want to stimulate debate and to get if

hopefully get to some kind of truth

which is the most important thing in

in a world where truth is so difficult

to find i also wanted to be famous and

i've only really realized this in

hindsight that i definitely wanted to be

famous not for the wrong reasons but i

think the reason i wanted to be famous

is because

it was the antithesis it was the

opposite of what i was sometimes when i

was younger when you're a kid trying to

fit in on the playground only black kid

in an all-white school people calling me

the n-word relaxing my hair to try and

be white like my friends were and i

think i thought fame as

acceptance

on a mass scale so i thought an

admiration so i thought that's what i

wanted when i read about you going to

that comprehensive school

i you were also subjected to quite a

rough treatment yeah well my full name

is piers stefan pugh morgan it's a

double barrel surname imagine having

that name when you go to a local comp

so you know on day one i had the local

skinhead who had a mohican come up and i

think smacked me in the face and that

carried on for quite a while but it

carried on people doing that kind of

thing until my brother jeremy's now a

british army colonel joined the school

and he was like the old thing of mike

tyson you know everyone's got a plan

until they get punched in the face

everyone had a plan about me

until my brother joined and punched him

in the face so i realized then that fall

sometimes it's not a bad thing that when

you're subjected to bullies actually

there's only one language most of them

understand i feel that as i did about

the playground at the time and i feel

about vladimir putin now what's going on

in ukraine it's the same principle when

someone's bullying you either show them

fear and weakness or you stand up to

them did you like school even though you

were both yeah i loved it i went to a

prep school until i was 13. so i had a

lot of privilege at the prep school you

know played sport every day

great academic uh levels and so on i

then went to the local comprehensive

which was a great school great very

successful comprehensive but suddenly

you were playing sport once a week i

realized then the massive gulf

between facilities and resource at a

comprehensive compared to a fee paying

prep school and how that was seemed so

unfair to me but i also discovered that

people

they had chips on their shoulders in

both environments you got the snobs at

the prep school and you got the yobs at

the

comprehensive most people were fine at

both but you got those two types of

people who would have chips on their

shoulders

about in the snobs case looking down on

people in the yobs case hating people

who had more privilege than them i think

i came out of that environment both

environments with quite a healthy you

either have a chip on both shoulders we

have no chip at all i think my ability

to

be exactly the same whether i'm sitting

with nelson mandela and the queen or my

old village mates

comes entirely from that dual pronged

education i had where i saw great

privilege and no privilege and had to

work out a way

of thriving in both environments i think

that was good for me actually if i

removed that experience of that

comprehensive school especially that

before your brother arrived um and saved

you from the bullying per se um what

would if i removed that experience what

would i remove from adult pierce morgan

um i think resilience and mental

strength these are two things i'm

extremely hot about i think this

generation in particular has lost the

ability to look at mental strength and

resilience and triumph over adversity

and being tough in difficult times as

badges of honor they've almost become

badges of shame

where people feel like it's wrong to

have a stiff upper lip to be

strong-minded to be resilient to be

tough under pressure and i looked yes i

was watching the golf the masters tiger

woods

look at tiger woods the story i mean

unbelievable 21 is the greatest golfer

that's ever lived destroying everybody

he has it all he wins 14 majors then he

has one of the greatest falls in the

history of sport and it all involves you

know vegas mayhem and so on and his

world collapses then he has horrific

injuries he becomes number 1100 in the

world he's finished there's a whole

mashup of clips of people saying he's

washed up he's finished he'll never win

again whatever

and there's also a video of him watching

that mashup just after he wins the 2019

masters which no one said he could do

again and again now he has a horrific

car crash you know a year ago and yet

here he is competing in the masters he's

made the cut again the guy is a freak of

nature but he's a freak of mental

strength and i look at him

and i see rocky balboa in mentality and

i look at many other sports stars at the

moment who think it's fine to quit to

give up to walk away to complain all the

time to moan about their lot in life and

i think how have we come to this

how even in high level sport has

quitting now becomes something to

celebrate now it's a contentious issue

and people say you're mocking mental

health when you do this but i don't

think so i think we treat the whole

mental health debate the wrong way i

think we should separate mental health

from mental illness

i don't think mental health is an issue

to even be debated particularly we all

have mental health but if you have a

mental illness you need help you need

treatment right now people are it seems

to me looking at normal life stuff as

some form of mental illness

and anxiety is exploding

people saying they're mentally sick

the incidence of that is exploding how

can that be happening when it's all

we're talking about 24 7. i think we're

going about it the wrong way i think

what we're losing in this debate

is a celebration of resilience and

mental strength i really believe that

and i think i think schools should have

more people in there teaching kids how

to be tougher about how to deal with

normal life stuff and i'm not talking

about people who have clinical

depression or suicidal tendencies or any

of those things those are serious mental

illnesses i'm talking about people who

are

thinking that normal stuff that's

happening in my life which we all have

to go through grief when you lose a

loved one

trouble at work trouble with

relationships whatever it may be

you've got to learn to be more resilient

about these things because that is life

life is rocky balboa said it's it's not

a it's not a better roses

life is tough you know and it's not

about how many times is rock he said to

his son and the famous scene in the

sixth of the franchise when they're that

scene in the street with the spoiled

entitled sun whining away about

everything and rocky turns on him

finally and says look it's not how many

times you

can hit it's how many times you can get

hit get knocked down and get back up and

keep moving forward that is what life's

about

and i don't think

we spend enough time

helping people to be mentally strong and

resilient we're spending too much time

encouraging a kind of wallowing in

self-pity and weakness and it's it is

i'm afraid it's not working demonstrably

not working i remember when you did an

interview with a famous world leader i

think he was a terrorist and you said to

him about his daughter what if your

daughter had dated a jewish yeah

so uh president in the judge of iran

yeah so so the i'll use that same

technique if if one of your children

comes to you and they and they express

some kind of symptom which could either

be a lack of mental resilience or it

could be but they do yeah they do and

how do you know the difference though

well you don't i talk to them yeah and i

talk i try and with all my kids they're

all very different

but they've all come to me at certain

stages with issues they they want help

with

and i always try and drill into them

perspective the great thing you get as

you get older and i'm 57 now

you learn about life good bad and ugly

you learn from mistakes you learn from

stuff that's gone bad in your life

you learn that actually you either give

up or you keep pounding as i keep always

say to them keep pounding just keep

pounding it'll be fine

and it invariably is fine so they start

to realize over time that i'm right that

actually just keep going right don't

give up whatever it is if it's a work

issue if it's an exam issue if it's a

relationship issue whatever it is i have

these conversations all the time on my

kids you know they're like the people i

spend most time talking to and i try and

you know and they all need different

advice and different help in different

ways

but what i try and do is perspective all

the time and based on my own experience

it's like i've been there i've been in

this position it feels like the worst

thing in the world

you know you lose a girlfriend that you

love you lose a job that you love you

you know you crash a car you lose a

family member that you love whatever it

may be

there are all sorts of things that will

come and test you especially as you get

older you lose your first friend who

dies when you're young i can remember

losing one of my closest friends before

he was even 30. devastating absolutely

devastating but when it happens again

and again with people that you care

about you realize that's life life is

what it is you have one life and people

die and people you love die and people

you care about die

and you've got to learn to ride that

that wave of grief and it's not mental

illness

it's not anxiety

it's

actually just something we all have to

deal with but too much i think too many

young people today

feel unnaturally anxious about these

things as they did about the pandemic or

about the war in ukraine an interesting

conversation i had with dr phil

out here in america actually about this

who said when he was young he gave the

analogy when he was young if

someone was eaten by a crocodile on a

golf course in florida very unlikely

that anyone would know that outside of

the immediate area

you know there were very few as one or

two

main television news bulletins a day

there were very few national newspapers

most state or county newspapers

and so it might get reported in the

local paper that would be it but

certainly nobody outside of florida

would likely ever hear about that the

difference now is

young people will see the video of the

person being eaten by the crocodile

within 20 minutes of it happening

quite likely someone will have got it on

a camera on their phone so they're being

exposed all the time to a sensory

overload of quite grim stuff ukraine is

a very good example

of the first time really we've had a war

of this kind where we're all watching it

in real time

unfurl on social media we're seeing all

the videos we're seeing the horror in

real first hand

exposure and that has to have an effect

on your senses it has to increase your

anxiety levels i get all that um you

know my grandmother was 19 in world war

ii when it started 25 when it ended she

didn't see all this stuff you just

didn't get exposed to it but if she had

been it would have probably had a

devastating effect on her so i think

that

i have sympathy with this generation i

think in many ways they're a great

generation they're better informed than

any previous generation i think that

these

networks like instagram facebook twitter

and so on they've certainly given people

an amazing connection with each other

but they've also got this terrible fomo

which has been created which i see the

first time with my kids one of their

summer and all their mates are somewhere

else all they're seeing is all the fun

going on on instagram

and it makes them a bit

anxious

i never had that i didn't know what my

friends were doing in the next village

so things have changed technology's

changed it's good in one way it can be

bad in other ways and we've got to work

out a way to help

young people but ultimately i come back

to

i don't want to be unsympathetic

certainly i want to help

but i do think we're going about it the

wrong way i think we're encouraging or

wallowing we're celebrating self-pity

we're celebrating victimhood in a way

that everybody now is like you see stuff

on twitter like you know i've just

failed my driving test for the fourth

time but i'm so proud of myself for the

journey i've gone on what are you

talking about

which means you're proud of yourself you

just failed you're driving desperately

thought let's be proud of i get that

part the bit that i i still i'm still

struggling to get on board with is

having sat here with even i know you

know roman kemp yeah and his love

right having sat here with roman kemp

and hearing this what he went through

with his his friend who was on his radio

station with him i'm very aware of that

yeah killed himself out of the blue yes

and never spoke to anyone and roman said

if i'd lined up 20 of my friends and

said which one is suicidal he would have

been named last yeah in my estimation so

when i reflect on that and i i look at

male suicides in particular and a lot of

what the mental health organizations say

the causes of that one of them is that

men just don't talk about how they're

feeling and then that results in

alcoholism and these are but i do talk

about it yeah and i do encourage people

so this is what i'm saying so when

someone says the use of the word

wallowing that sounds very similar it

depends what they're wallowing in if

they're wallowing in

but you know when you use those words

yes

you know because you're a smart man and

you you you write you know that people

will

misunderstand the use of the word and

there's harm in them that's them

misunderstanding what i mean by it okay

it's a bit like the debate about obesity

we're now at the ludicrous stage of this

debate we're not allowed to call people

fat

you're not allowed to it's offensive

so we now have a situation where you see

a 310 pound model on the cover of

cosmopolitan who's five foot two she's

dangerously morbidly obese but the cover

the picture and the interview six pages

inside never mentions that it celebrates

her body positive image nothing body

positive about being morbidly obese

she's going to die if she's enabled in

this way going forward i'm not afraid to

say that and there's a society that

doesn't go there

and pretends that this is all perfectly

acceptable is doing that woman an

incredible disservice so when you say

well you can't use the word wallowing

but i would say to you stephen i didn't

say that because you're implying it yeah

yeah

because i would say to you a lot of

people do wallow i see them what's the

difference between wallowing and coming

to a friend and saying i'm feeling

really or even tweeting it so i'm

feeling like there's something wrong

with me what's the difference between

wallowing well there's a line i don't

know i know exactly what the line is but

i do know when friends or family members

come to me

either they come to me with something

where i think yeah they've got a valid

reason to feel this way or sometimes you

just got to go

get over it and then they might laugh

and have a drink and they get over it i

think by the way you're not allowed to

say that anymore there'll be people

watching this your younger audience will

be going oh my god did you just tell

people to get over it it's all about

people with mental illness no i'm not no

i'm not be very careful that you listen

to what i'm saying i distinguish between

people who i believe have mental illness

and people who i believe are genuinely

wallowing because society has decided

that it wants to celebrate people who

have something wrong with them more than

it celebrates now people who are

successful and tough achievers and talk

about having grit and stiff upper lip

and all these things that's all become

sticks to beat people with i have it

used against me a day you talk about a

stiff upper lip why shouldn't i

why shouldn't i i have a stiff upper lip

i've been through a lot of crap in my

life and i've decided that that's the

way i deal with it you may not like it

and maybe you like to deal with it by

going woe is me and one of my favorite

poems is a uh d.h lawrence poem called

about self-pity it's only three or four

lines

and it says a wild thing never feels

sorry for itself

a bird will die frozen

on a bow of a tree before it feels

self-pity or something like that it's a

brilliant poem so that's it it's only

about four lines

and i get that point is in the in the

jungle in the world of animals self-pity

doesn't exist

wallowing in your own woe doesn't exist

you've got to get on with it you know

one of my favorite conversations ever

with with sir roger bannister who sadly

died but he was the first man to break

the four-minute mile

and he i asked him he used to live in

the square i live in london and he came

to one of the 200th anniversary of the

square and i had a chat with him and i

said did you only you know when you won

this amazingly killed it collapsed at

the line i said did you have any sort of

motivational quote that drove you and he

went funny enough he said i have one it

was an anonymous proverb from the

african bush

and it was when a lion wakes up in the

morning

it knows one thing it has to run faster

than the slowest gazelle or it won't eat

and when a gazelle wakes up in the

morning it knows it has to run faster

than the slowest line or it's going to

get killed

so whatever you are in the african bush

one thing's for sure

when the sun comes up you better start

running

and that motivated him and it's a great

quote and i think it's a great quote for

all your

viewers listeners in this podcast to

take away from this interview if you

take one thing away

get running get moving

be positive don't let normal life stuff

drag you down because if it does it will

dominate your life and you'll become one

of those sort of miserable

self-obsessed people in the wrong way

where all you're thinking about is you

and your problems and your woes it's

like there are a lot of people a lot

worse off than you when i see some of

the crap i'm watching at the moment on

social media of people feeling sorry for

themselves when you see what's happening

in ukraine it actually makes me puke

it's like watch what's happening to the

people of ukraine and get a perspective

about your life and i'm sorry if that

sounds tough but i'm not sorry actually

i get you i completely get the point

about mental resilience and i think

there's so much of what you said that i

really agree with especially about a

younger generation i'm

i've said on this podcast many times i

am scared of over labeling things things

that might just be a bad mood or

whatever with something else which is

much more medically um concerning and

when i asked that question then you said

it depends what it is yeah in terms of a

friend coming to you with mental health

disorder the problem is

you'll know that these things are so

subjective so

when uh when someone comes like people

could genuinely be suicidal genuinely be

suicide not well faking or looking for

attention over

losing a cryptocurrency investment i

read an article about that the other day

guy's crypto investment goes down kills

himself

so i i the risk i see is being the judge

of whether someone's feelings are worthy

of the the emotion

that's the risk it's like

you know like i think there are because

there are millions of people out there

prepared to

do what you're talking about i i'm a

very rare voice

in the public platform arena who's

prepared to give a slightly different

perspective on this stuff and to me

there's room for both of us you know you

don't need any more people who are going

to give 24 7 coverage to mental health

as an issue as

on the assumption we're all slightly

mentally ill i just don't buy it i read

i read a report last year said 33

million people in britain are mentally

ill no but not

it's crap

crap and when when a society pretends

that is the case

because a lot of people are identifying

as mentally ill when actually they just

have anxiety about exams or

relationships or whatever it may be

when we do that it means the people who

really need help are not getting it it

means they're slipping through the

cracks in my opinion

and that's the problem with it

um and you know it's not about being

callous or insensitive my i think my

kids would tell you i spent hours and

hours

sometimes talking through problems with

them but always i come back to look

life's tough and you've got to keep

pounding that's my mantra

because this one i've applied to myself

and my family have had a lot of stuff to

deal with and they've kept pounding

because what's the alternative really

the alternatives you give up

and that to me is not an option

not an option that would bring me any

pleasure couldn't look in the mirror

having just given up all the time why

would why would that bring anyone

pleasure

i had a few words to say about one of my

sponsors on this podcast for many years

people have been asking for a coffee

flavoured huel and quite recently he'll

release the iced coffee caramel flavor

of their um ready to drink heels and

i've just become hooked on it over the

last couple of weeks i've been on a

really interesting journey with huel

which i've described and talked about a

little bit on this podcast i started

with the berry ready to drink then i

moved over to the protein salted caramel

because it's 100 calories and it gives

you all of your essential vitamins and

minerals but also gives you the 20 odd

grams of protein you need and now i'm

balanced between them both i drink

mostly the banana flavor ready to drink

i've got really into the iced coffee

caramel flavor of heels ready to drink

and now i'm drinking that as well as the

protein make sure you try the new ready

to drink flavors that the caramel flavor

is amazing the new banana flavor as well

is amazing and obviously as i said the

iced coffee caramel flavor has been a

real smash here so check it out let me

know what you think on social media i

see all of your tags and instagram posts

and tweets about you

back to the podcast

one of the things that i love about your

um well i was really compelled by by

your story as i read through your early

professional career was clearly for some

reason which i couldn't figure out from

just reading

you got a head quite quickly

kelvin gave you a shot yeah at the sun

rupert murdoch gave you a shot at news

of the world when you were 28 he made

you the the editor of the largest

newspaper in the western hemisphere if

i'm not correct 28 years old so when i

was reading that i i thought i've got to

ask him

why

what was it about you well i think that

i remember alex ferguson saying i know

you're a big united fan of my sympathies

at this different time i remember him

saying that he loved youth because there

was a fearlessness of youth i think i

was quite fearless in my 20s certainly

you know before you get responsibility

before you get married you have kids and

so on you get other people you're

responsible for there's a fearlessness

that comes with youth and i think i had

that certainly it was instilled by

the confidence came from my family very

strong women in particular in my family

my mum my grandmother tremendously

strong people who come through a lot of

adversity um never wallowed in self-pity

to quote the awful phrase i know drives

you mad

but they never did and that was just not

allowed it was always like just get on

with it dust yourself down get on with

it and i like that to be honest i

thrived under that mantra and i remember

kelvin mckenzie was a mercurial genius

in many many ways

brutal but brilliant you know hilarious

and barbaric i mean he's like everything

but the sun had an amazing power and

voice when he was in charge of it

and

he said the most annoying thing about me

was that he could give me the most

savage bollocking where literally his

sort of neck

veins would start to explode

and within an hour i'd bounce back into

his office

bouncing with excitement because i had a

scoop for him and i was completely

unfazed by the bollocking it had

motivated me to go and prove him wrong

and get and get a good story i think

that's how people should be in life

i think it's a shame that in the

workplace now you're not allowed to

raise your voice

you're not allowed to it's bullying

everyone's a victim of bullying you

can't have any banter anymore can't be

fun

all the joy's been sucked out of life by

this woke brigade of

in my view awful people

who just think that life should be

humorous

banterless

uh everything is bullying every

criticism is bullying

everything is terrible people are awful

you can't have fun you can't do anything

i don't buy it it's not what most people

are like

most people aren't like that they don't

actually believe the crap they're coming

out with they don't it's not how anybody

wants to lead their lives we know from

the pandemic what it's like when our

freedom our basic freedom gets taken

away why would we come out of a pandemic

would we want to lead a joyless

existence how do we fix this because i

agree with you i i think that common

sense has to come into play i think the

problem with the the woke council

culture as i put it is if you go and

study i read a whole book about this

last year it was a massive bestseller

because people understood it right so i

think you know where i come from

probably politically we're not that far

apart from each other i guess from what

i know about you um but i i want to

study the origin of the word woke and

what it meant i by that definition i'm

woke

i believe in promoting

uh campaigns against racial and social

injustice i've done it all my career as

a newspaper editor and as a television

broadcaster you know i've done that it

doesn't cut the ice though with the

modern word brigade because they've

stolen

wokery and they've now used it as a new

form of fascism

where they want to dictate to people how

they lead their lives what they can find

funny

what movies are acceptable are not

acceptable what television shows they

can enjoy you know what haircuts they

can have that aren't inappropriate or

cultural inappropriation you can't

celebrate any other culture anymore it's

all inappropriate every joke is

inappropriate every comedian has to be

cancelled people can't host the oscars

if they told a inappropriate joke 10

years before

uh yet roman polanski was given an oscar

after he raped a child i mean the sort

of warp morality of all this

is absolutely extraordinary to me but at

its center a woman came up to me in

kensington

a few months ago after the markle

debacle as i call it and she said she

said mr morgan i'm an 80 year old

australian woman but don't hold either

of those things against me i meant to

laugh on the streets he said the trouble

with these wokies is they want to suck

all the joy out of life and i thought

what a brilliant way of describing it

and they've literally become the very

fascists that they profess to hate most

and we have to counter it and so my

ambition with my new show for example is

to cancel cancer culture to go back to

what a democracy should be to what

society should be when it's supposedly

democratic where you and i can have a

spirited debate about something and

agree to disagree and go and have a beer

or maybe we reach points of consensus to

what used to happen i've had ferocious

arguments with my friends and family my

entire life the idea i would disown them

as you see happening all the time now

with people falling out with friends and

family because they're so blindly

self-righteous about their own opinion

that they can't tolerate another opinion

the idea we have university campuses

where

only one certain type of voice is

tolerated at a university a place you're

supposed to learn all sorts of disparate

views hear all different voices and make

your own mind up now no unless they're

woke speakers no one else is allowed if

you're a conservative which by the way

many millions of people are in this

country in america and australia if

you're a conservative you are the enemy

to be crushed and destroyed and no

platformed really

how do we get there

how could any student

have their mind developed or evolved in

an environment that cancels anybody

for deviating from a woke agenda

it's

madness

you know and when i look at what's

happening with the transgender debate i

support transgender rights to fairness

and equality i always have publicly in

columns on television

on twitter

i've been very clear i want transgender

people to have equality and fairness

right to the point where trans activism

leads to an erosion of women's rights as

we're seeing all over the place not

least in the world of sport if anybody

genuinely wants to sit here and say to

me that what's going on in women's sport

with transgender athletes is fair or

equal

i'd love to listen to it because it's

[ __ ]

we all know it's unfair and what's being

caught in the crosshairs of this is that

many trans people who don't want to get

involved in this debate and just want to

be able to go about their lives and try

and have a life of fairness and equality

they're getting subjected to mockery and

ridicule

because it's so ridiculous what's going

on

with

transport

and so i say to people yeah you can say

to me you're bigoted and you're

transphobic but i'm not

i'm actually just the voice of common

sense when you see even jk rowling

cancelled because she believes in the

biology of sex

it's just madness

sex is not something you can just

pretend like gender it could be anything

you make up on the spur of the moment it

can't be

you you've seen how this is

got progressively more let's say the

world has got progressively more work

i think

the world has moved from being

woke

right okay by the original i think that

most people in the 60s 70s and 80s

wanted to see better

racial equality and social equality

most people

but that's what the original definition

of woke was the modern day woke is

nothing to do with that the modern day

woke is a form of fascism okay so you

will abide by our rules or you get

destroyed that's the difference to me so

the world has got more of this modern

day wokism yeah right um and it's i i've

seen it on social media the way that

algorithms work as well they show you

more of the same they keep reinforcing

you then they then because you build an

audience of the same people they clap

more when you say a certain thing yes

kind of reinforcement you appreciate

your choir yeah you know i i i you know

geologies

you go about two thousand years we lived

in tribes yeah that's written in your

book yeah right and i told the story you

never used to come out of your tribe so

everyone in the tribe would look the

same same attitudes eat the same food

drink the same drink same senses of

humor because you never moved out of

this group of people

and then people began to move out of

their tribes and meet other tribes who

dress differently thought differently

laughed at different things maybe spoke

differently and both tribes in that

moment decided the only answer to this

was to kill each other

well that's where we've gone back to are

you optimistic that not really no so

this is what i wanted to say is your

antidote for this new workism is to lead

and to create a counter narrative which

is what you're doing with your new show

piece you haven't centered what you did

with your book as well are you

optimistic deeply that that will win

well let me ask you a question so i'm

i'm described as highly controversial

right i've been called all sorts of

names people say that what i say things

i say are outrageous

when you read my book how many times did

you stop and think that's outrageous no

i didn't really disagree with anything

right so that's my point i don't think

i'm the controversial one well so i

think i come at this from a reasonably

common scenario i didn't disagree with

you at all because you were talking

about things like populism and

liberalism and how it's changed i

completely agree i think i used to

identify as being on the left now i

don't because the the

the because they're nuts a lot of them

yeah a lot of it is absolutely nuts i

also don't really identify with being on

the right either because they're nuts i

agree

i find myself you get nuts on both sides

and we're moving to the extremities but

i'll get cancelled from both sides yes

because i don't wear the football kit of

either i'm the same yeah so i want to

bring back a more

consensus related society

where consensus where you reach points

of agreement through debate and you

don't try and

shame or cancel each other by having

different opinions

because that's at the core of this you

know they call themselves liberals

they're not liberal liberalism isn't

about

an inability to tolerate other opinions

it's the opposite

you're supposed to tolerate and respect

other opinions

and agree to disagree we've lost this in

society because a small group of people

but very vocal and very angry about

everything all the time

they are driving an agenda which if we

go down that road we'll be the end of a

democratic society as we know it so i

see my self

humbly as

trying to defend democracy genuinely

and humility is not something that comes

naturally to me but genuinely trying to

defend what democracy really is and

trying to educate these

wokies about what real liberalism is

what democracy actually means what free

speech means free speech is not about

you in an echo chamber all agreeing with

each other as churchill said free speech

is about listening to views you just

don't agree with but allowing people to

have different views

you're you know it's funny i i went

around the world when i was running my

marketing business um before i resigned

and i used to have one slide on my

presentation deck that had your face on

it

and do you know who else's face was on

that same slide deck i went all around

the world with this presentation with

apple amazon i had pierce morgan

katie hopkins kanye west and donald

trump and i used to tell people that

this a very important thing to learn

from these four people because whether

you like them or not

in marketing the least profitable

outcome is indifference when you don't

carry either way and people have an

opinion it's funny because

you know i was talking to the girls on

my team here yesterday and they don't

always agree with you but they're always

listening yeah and sometimes you know on

the covered issues or this issue they'll

be behind you and then they'll be

against you but do you realize

strategically

um the art of being the sen being the

center of conversation yes and and what

are the principles

if if it's a brand trying to be relevant

or the center of attention or if it's a

person in their personal brand for you

what are the principles for one to

replicate what you've done with that

confidence confidence in yourself

self-belief yeah i think the one thing i

have is a lot of self-belief i'm i'm

firm i remember a friend of mine kevin

peterson the cricketer his big mantra

with himself when he played cricket for

england was back yourself back yourself

whoever you're facing he was one of the

few players in history to demolish shane

warm at his peak in the 2005 ashes

series because he backed himself but

it's smashing it's risky we've seen from

your cause it's risky but as wayne

gretzky the greatest ice hockey player

in history

said brilliantly you'll miss a hundred

percent of the shots you don't take

you've got to take risks in life you've

got to learn from failure mars the

confectioners used to celebrate

chocolate bars that didn't work more

than they did chocolate bars that worked

they worked on the assumption that most

of their bars would work they tested

them tested and tested and knew what

they were doing so most of their

new bars would would work but if they

occasionally had a failure out of

nowhere stunned everyone they would

celebrate that because they reckon they

learn more from the failure than they

did from the endless success and i agree

i've learned more from failures and

success success is easy

when you're successful everyone must

have a piece of the pie and i've had

great success and i've had

wonderfully you know cataclysmic moments

of doing

and when you get the doing the old

cliche you find out who your friends are

is completely true you find out who your

friends are you find out who actually

cares about you who's prepared to stand

up for you

you know i remember

after my dramatic departure from good

morning britain sharon osbourne

tweeting uh that i was entitled to my

opinion

she knew by doing that there could be

massive repercussions for her given how

incendiary the whole debate was it cost

her a job

scandalously

scandalously she was described as a

racist sympathizer

on her show the talk but when she asked

them to describe what racist things i'd

said they weren't able to do so because

guess what i'd said nothing racist

nothing i thought about mega market was

driven by

anything to do with her race or skin

color why would it be

i just thought she was a disingenuous

piece of work smearing the royal family

i'm entitled to that opinion you may not

agree with it i think most people who

watch the interview probably ended up

agreeing with me it doesn't really

matter whether you agree or not but the

idea that sharon osborne was destroyed

at the altar of

cancel culture

because she had the audacity to say i

was entitled to an opinion not that she

even agreed with my opinion

just that i was entitled to one

that in that moment said to me

how ridiculous this culture has got

ridiculous and i'm delighted that sharon

is now going to be back on talk tv in

the uk

in the show after mine on a show called

the talk

she's going to be uncanceled by us

because she should never have been

cancelled in the first place and when

people say counseling doesn't exist look

at what happened to sharon look at the

effect it had on her and her family

devastating she couldn't get a job in

america where she'd worked for 40 years

so it's going on and i i want to cancel

that culture i think it's wrong so so

one of so that led to the first point

there was confidence in backing yourself

yes i think the other thing you've got

to have a bit of bravado a bit of

hutzpah

you've got to have an ability to know

how to stir things up and wind people up

i like to annoy all the right people who

are so permanently offended by

everything they're easy to wind up do i

enjoy that yes i love sometimes just

putting a tweeter i mean the vegan

sausage roll debate was one of the

funniest things ever i had the flu on

holiday in italy i was in bed sweating

with a raging fever and i saw greg

saying the wait is over

finally it's here the vegan sausage

right so what on earth are you talking

about who's been waiting for a vegan

sausage roll apart from anything else

like brew with the french where it's

illegal to market

uh vegetarian or vegan products using

meat language a sausage roll is meat

if vegans want to eat their gruel fine

go and have a joyless existence munching

your lentils don't take my language

don't pretend your sausage rolls are

real sausage rolls they're not and

they're tasteless and they've got more

calories than mcdonald's cheeseburgers

so my point is

do i care look i don't care as much as i

do about ukraine

but in the moment it really annoyed me

that there was a presumption we'd all

been waiting for a vegan sausage roll

and i was also annoyed that you were

seeing stories of

vegans charging into state restaurants

and playing music of cows being killed

it's like shut up and go away i don't

come into your gruel restaurant

ever and shout about what you do to the

bee community in california when you eat

your almonds and almond milk right

billions of bees exterminated every year

in a six week cull in california so

vegans can eat almonds and eat avocados

but do you care about vegan sausage

rolls uh i care about the hypocrisy that

surrounds the debate actually so anyway

i did a tweet saying this is ridiculous

and

and everyone went nuts i wasn't allowed

to think that this was ridiculous i had

to agree that vegan sausage rolls are

fantastic everyone goes bonkers

greg's love it because they sell i think

about a billion dollars worth more of

their products that year in fact the ceo

thanked me personally at the end of year

results so they cleaned up in fact i'm

thinking about going to a business where

all i do is take big checks from

companies to attack their products and

probably make a fortune and but the

whole thing to show me that everyone was

allowed to love vegan sausage rolls but

if you deviated from that and said you

hated them you had to be destroyed this

wasn't acceptable

the work brigade decided vegan sausage

rolls were untouchable you had to

support them you had to think they were

great this was brilliant even though

they're bad for you

literally worse for you than a

mcdonald's cheeseburger uh in terms of

salt and calorie intake

and even though the whole thing was

predicated on this utter hypocrisy

around vegan food that somehow they're

leaving the little the animals alone

when they exterminate the little guys

the bees and i feel sorry for the bees

no one ever hear vegans talk about bees

here it's always the big animals they

care about cows not the little guys i'm

a little guy

i'm the robin hood of this debate i look

after the little guys against the

sheriffs of nottingham sure

well i think about that so okay you play

that you play you know i know from what

you've said here you know that it's part

of it is a game and it's a very

profitable it's all fun right to a point

but there's also a serious point behind

it which is that actually

the vegan

food business is a massively burgeoning

business and that's fine people want to

eat that that's fine but i do agree with

the french that actually you shouldn't

be allowed to

pretend what you're doing is meat

related because it's not so there's a

genuine point there which i do feel

quite strongly about the french have

made it illegal you can't use meat

language to sell vegan products i think

we should go the same way you have your

world and we'll have ours you know your

career has been pretty filled with these

moments of like where you are the center

the orbit of sort of you know

debate and controversy controversy when

you go for a period and people aren't

tweeting at your abuse and stuff and

they're not kicking off do you feel a

little bit like [ __ ] was i've made a

mistake i remember donald trump telling

me when he got to the white house he put

four tvs in his bedroom i used to wake

up in the morning at five o'clock

because he doesn't sleep

and he'd look at the tvs and if he

didn't like what was on the screen or if

it wasn't about him he'd just pull his

phone out and tweet something and next

thing they'd all change in real time

breaking news president trump says blah

blah blah and i kind of related to that

it's like i wake up in the morning and

i'm not trending it's like there's a

problem and i have to deal with it so

yeah look i'm in the opinion business

it's very lucrative for me i make a lot

of money out of it i get a lot of

notoriety and fame out of it people love

me or hate me but you know that's

part of being in the opinion business if

you don't want to be

loved and hated

then you don't express opinions about

anything and that way to me madness lies

you know i'd much rather be it's like

the old again churchill uh you know he

said that

if you've got enemies it means at some

stage in your life you stood up for

something that you believe in good

that's good

when you've had those you you called

them catastrophic events in your life

where you know

and well other people see them as

catastrophic i've never really seen it

that way myself like when i got fired

from the mirror for example yeah after

10 years other people were far more

agitated about that and thought it was

far more characterism than i did the

mirror good morning britain and this was

the other thing about your story which i

found really i wanted to ask you about

is you have these these ups and then

these downs and these ups and these

downs and your twitter bio i think is

probably quite an an apt um

summary of of maybe your views on this

which is i can't remember exactly but

one day of the cockpit one day you're

the [ __ ] of the war next to feather

duster yeah so

and then i read that you know after like

the mirror situation you slept a lot

yeah

and then and then also it seems that

after every firing or push getting

pushed out whatever you go and get

pissed no

again churchill who i love as you may

have gathered again churchill who's now

being reviled by the white brigade of

course because he saved the world from

nazi germany so of course he has to be

destroyed

but churchill you know he he also said

that the best definition of success is

going from failure to failure with no

discernible loss of enthusiasm now i

think i've had a lot of success and

occasional failure but i don't look upon

any of the downs in the same way that

other people do about my career i'm very

relaxed about my level of success and

failure i think it's all been greased to

the mill

normally i've left somewhere in

explosive circumstances and it's lit to

something better invariably so i'm very

optimistic about it my glasses always

are full i think that one chapter ending

is another chapter about to start you

just have to make sure you get something

good

if i spoke to your wife i mean even your

kids and i said how does pierce's

emotional state change after in one of

these moments of catastrophic

failure getting kicked out

they'd say what i'm saying

he doesn't change at all barely at all

barely at all no i don't i don't i

probably if anything i'm more relaxed

that's all because when you're in one of

these cauldron jobs editing a daily

newspaper or doing a morning tv show you

know and you've got the adrenaline

whirring and you're caffeined up and so

on it makes you slightly wired to be

around when you're not doing that you're

more relaxed i'm probably just calmer a

bit more relaxed and then that gets a

bit boring and i want to get back in the

game again because in that in that gap

between one job and the next that you've

had many of those those gaps what's

going on in your life and how are you

not because it must be very easy for you

to just to rush into something else the

next day yeah but the gap between you

leaving good morning britain i always

advise people

when they lose a big job take your time

just go and clear your head

you'll get offered loads of things but

don't react to it let the dust settle

you know i left good morning britain it

was a massive global firestorm uh and i

just took my time i had loads of people

offering me stuff every day

all sorts of jobs from around the world

could have taken any one of them

uh but actually i thought i'm gonna take

my time just chill

watch some football watch some cricket

see some friends

uh get fit you know unfortunately then

got covered and that was the end of the

fitness camp over a few months but the

the principle is clear your head you get

these moments a few times in your life

where you get a chance to reset

recalibrate clear your head and then

work out what you really want to do next

because it won't be the same thing three

or four months down the line as it feels

in the moment most people's tendencies

when they leave a big job in dramatic

circumstances i've got to do the same

thing somewhere else

prove my point i don't feel i need to

prove anything to anybody you know i was

a talent show judge for six years loved

it number one show on british tv and

american tv for six years great then i

left

i i just couldn't think of any more

things to say about piano playing pigs

it's time to move on you know i did

larry king's job at cnn after him for

nearly four years i did 1200 shows on

prime time cnn around the world people

call it a failure it's like well that's

1200 more than any other british person

i've seen do a prime time talk show in

america so it's all about it's all

relative isn't it about what your

perception of failure is had a great

time in cnn and actually i wanted to

come home i then did breakfast tv which

i never thought i'd ever want to do or

even enjoy i loved it and we absolutely

crushed it we took the ratings from a 14

share to 36 share they've now gone back

to 18. so people could do the maths you

know i think it was a massive success

and yeah i still meet some people go uh

yeah all went wrong for you didn't i

said not really no no it was a brilliant

success good morning britain uh we

became the number one

breakfast show in the country on my last

day

i left on a point of principle and the

principle was i'm entitled to my opinion

you may not like it i'm entitled to my

opinion and in each case where i've had

a career-ending sort of moment it's

really been where the bosses have lost

their bottle with me

so i need i've now gravitated back to my

first big boss in the media rupert

murdoch who's got balls of steel

and he's not going to take a phone call

from meghan markle demanding my head on

a plane

i had a few words to say about one of my

sponsors on this podcast as we all know

energy independence and living a little

greener has never been more important

for a better future it's a journey i've

been on over the last couple of years

that i've shared with you sporadically

ever since i sold my range over sport

and bought an electric bicycle and

there's a lot of people out there that

listen to this podcast that are looking

to make that sustainable switch in the

things that run their daily life whether

it's their home their car their vehicles

whatever it might be so when a good

friend of mine at a company called my

energy called jordan told me she was

interested in sponsoring this podcast i

jumped at the opportunity so for those

of you that don't know my energy are a

uk renewable energy brand whose mission

is to increase the usage of green energy

helping people like you and i to save

time and money when it comes to making

sustainable switches in our lives so if

this resonates with you and you're the

type of person that's been looking or

thinking about going on your own

sustainability journey i highly

recommend checking them out at

meghan myenergy.com

right not going to go into the issues of

that i'm really not personally that

interested in it but what i was i didn't

want to ask you as i saw when you spoke

oxford they you were talking about

jeremy clarkson getting in a fist fight

with him yeah going down the pub making

up after and there you said i do like to

fall out with someone in the makeup

again yeah

what would it take for you and meghan

markle

to make up

she could do she did an interview like

this with me be very interesting

you know it's like meghan markle to me

has lost all sense of reality about life

she needs to sit with someone like me

not an oprah winfrey enabling interview

fueling your victimhood she needs

someone to give her some perspective i

talk to her about perspective

where i say you know you are you aware

that when you preach to us about climate

change and the environment and carbon

footprint from elton john's private

plane

it doesn't sit very well are you aware

that when you tweet as they did on the

day of her half a million dollar baby

shower in new york with all her

celebrity friends

when you tweet from your twitter account

about poverty it doesn't sit very well

are you aware that when you preach about

equality from your 11 million california

mansion it doesn't sit very well are you

aware that when you rip our beloved

prince away from the bosom of his family

and take him to america and woke him

into submission it doesn't sit very well

with the british people are you aware

that when you make

very serious allegations of racism and

callous disregard for suicidal thoughts

you actually have to produce some

evidence to support it otherwise

everyone at the palace and the royal

family gets smeared by association with

those comments is she aware of any of

those things i don't know but i'd love

to ask those questions she didn't get

asked them by oprah oprah's went what

what what repeatedly

just believed everything she said we now

know at least 17 statements that meghan

markle made in that interview were false

so am i still supposed to believe her

is it a job-ending moment if i don't

believe her so i think she's a piece of

work

i think she i was one of many people

that she used along her

her path up the slippery ladder that's

fine i don't care he met her once

but the way she treated me on a very

small level is not dissimilar the way

she disowned her father the guy that

brought her up on his own for six seven

years

you know he got disowned he lived 70

miles away she never sees him he's ever

met his son-in-law i miss crazy stuff

right she had one member of her entire

family at the wedding

where her family should have been on

either side was oprah winfrey and george

clooney do me a favor

so i see right through it people still

want to believe her that's fine people

love meghan markle think what's happened

to harry is great that's fine too i just

don't agree

and i'm afraid you have to respect my

right to have that opinion um i'm

getting about as bored with it as you

are to be honest with you yeah so i

don't want to be defined by meghan

markle even though she was personally

responsible for me losing a job that i i

loved

you know she was the one who wrote to

the boss of itv

on the monday night that led to me

leaving the next day

um

talking about being we're both women and

we're both mothers you've got to get rid

of him do people think that's right

is it right that uh

that a

person like meghan markle from the

california mansion should leave her a

british television broadcaster out of a

job he's enjoying that viewers are

enjoying him doing in that way i don't

think so is it right that my right to

free speech was so impinged that i had

to leave a job if i didn't apologize for

disbelieving someone who said false

things i don't think so i thought the

whole thing was ridiculous as did ofcom

the government regulated months later

who ruled in my favor so i thought the

whole thing frankly was preposterous but

in answer to your original question

let's do an interview megan let me put

all these questions to you and answer

some difficult questions

because i don't wish them harm i don't

wish them to be unhappy but i hate what

they've done between them to the royal

family and the monarchy i think it's

been incredibly damaging do you ever do

you ever get concerned that on a real

human level that some of the words you

say

say for megan or sam smith or on good

morning britain or even around i know is

it tessa who was the front cover of the

magazine yeah the the cosmo covergirl

cover do you ever has it ever crossed

your mind that the words or tweets might

actually

hurt someone do you think it's crossed

did you well has it across meghan

markle's mind

what she did to me you know like on the

suicide megan i didn't cost her a job

you know

she was saying she was suicidal

again i don't want to go back to the

point of mental health but did you ever

like think

is this going to

hurt this person on it she she said that

two people at the palace when she told

them she had suicidal thoughts said she

couldn't get treatment

because it would be damaging to the

brand yeah i don't believe that and no

evidence has been brought forward to

support it those are extremely

incendiary allegations in my view

weaponizing mental health and suicide

to portray yourself as a victim if

meghan markle has proof

that two senior members of the royal

household refused to let her get help

for suicidal thoughts i want to know who

they were

when they said it and they shouldn't

have those jobs

but we are now

a year and a bit later

no evidence similarly with her racism

claims one of them we knew immediately

was untrue it's completely untrue that

her son

was prevented from being a prince

because of his skin color demonstrably

untrue

factually wrong and the other claim was

that a member of the royal family

expressed concern about archie's skin

color who was it and what did they say

and what was the context in which they

said it because the damage that she

calls by calling the royal family a

bunch of racists is incalculable as we

saw on the recent tour of the caribbean

with william and kate so i don't think

it's i don't think it's harsh

to want some evidence to support such

incendiary claims and when it comes to

do i use tough language yes sometimes i

think i do

but i don't regret doing that because i

think they've been using pretty

despicable language themselves have you

ever regretted anything you've said in

terms of sometimes you think oh i mean

sometimes no i encourage all my kids to

be free thinkers and sometimes they'll

be on me you know like dad you went too

far you shouldn't say that and we'll

have a spirited debate about it and

sometimes they they change my mind about

stuff tell me one example i knew that

i tried to think it has happened

it has happened i mean they'll be saying

that my middle son stanley is an actor

and photographer

he loves your podcast he's my favorite

son yeah exactly he's like oh he's on

mine all right i have all my sons of the

same and my daughter um

but he would say now that's talking

about meghan markle yeah just don't

bother don't and he's right there comes

a point what's the point the problem is

they make themselves

newsworthy all the time my job is to

talk about the news and obviously have a

vested interest in

the mark called debacle because it cost

me my job so i still feel that i have a

sort of involvement in that in that

story but he would certainly be saying

that move on to other stuff

you know just do something else in this

interview that's more interesting than

megan bloody markle and he's right

actually

so that would be an example i've had

that conversation with him and my other

sons but we argue we have we have a

what's up group me and my sons if people

read that or they laugh because they

hammer me my kids about all sorts of

stuff sometimes we agree a lot of the

time we don't agree and we have

really vociferous arguments but then we

all go out there and have fun together

and that's the way it should be i want

my kids to be independent-minded i want

them to challenge me i want to challenge

them and sometimes it gets really heated

you know as a dad when you're leading at

such a crusade as i'm sure you'd call it

um about free thinking and free speech

and these kinds of things

surely

there's some kind of consequence for

your kids right because you're put not i

mean fame

in and of itself creates a consequence

for you they get picked on because

they're my dad but i always say to them

you also get lots of benefits because

you're my sons right and my children all

of you right we go and have a we have a

wonderful time right we get treated like

royalty in restaurants we you know we

have lovely holidays we have a lovely

place in beverly hills they come to all

this is because

of

my

fame for one of a better word and

success as amid the failings

and i say you got to take life in

totality there'll be some annoying bits

of being my

children and there'll be some very good

benefits of being my children you know i

got cristiano ronaldo when i interviewed

him to do a uh video to my sons naming

them all right they were like oh my god

but they wouldn't get that if i wasn't

who i am so they have a wonderful moment

and then they might get trolls as in one

case happen making death threats to my

oldest son on his instagram and i did

take that to the police because why

should my sons be exposed to death

threats from some disgusting troll and

it's interesting with the process it's

been over a year now and it still hasn't

come to court it was a clear and

demonstrable death threat specific

to my son and me and to his mum my

ex-wife and it's like how can this be

allowed to happen and we're still a year

a year and a half later and we're still

no action against the perpetrator i'm

hoping there will be it's going through

the process but shows you the frailty

and weakness of social media that

someone can make a specific death threat

and nothing gets done for so long so

that's a downside of being

my you know when in the good morning

britain thing blew up all my sons were

being abused on social media in the most

horrific manner by a targeted mob

of people normally who have the be kind

hashtag in their bio

while spewing vile abuse of my kids

simply for being my children they didn't

even agree with me about a lot of it

outside of losing people

when does pierce morgan cry

nafta

i mean really

the last time i cried was my

grandmother's funeral 2013.

before that

i remember welling up at a movie um i

was trying to i think it was it was a

movie that ends in a horrible fashion

with a young son being shot dead i can't

remember what each one it was um

i think it was paul tom hanks maybe

paul newman or something like i can't

remember the movie but i was at the

cinema i was watching it and

it reminded me of my sons

and when the kid gets killed in the kind

of horrible denis montes movie i did

actually well up and i was surprised i

learned normally i don't well up at most

things because i think also as a

newspaper relative for 10 years you get

quite immune to shocking things

even if they're real in your world you

get immune to it you get used to dealing

with you know you've had to