"I found her to be a very smart, focused, thoughtful, feisty and confident woman … I really, really liked her."
In his own words, Piers Morgan believed Meghan Markle to be "perfect princess material" back in December 2016, soon after it was revealed she was dating Prince Harry.
He wrote in his column for the Mail Online that, if he were Harry, he would be popping the question pretty damn sharpish as he was unlikely to find a better bride to keep him on his toes.
After all, he knew Meghan — they met for drinks at his local London pub the week she first dated Harry.
Then, according to Morgan, she "ghosted" him.
Over the past few years Morgan has been increasingly critical of Meghan, and to a lesser extent Harry, culminating in him storming off UK television show Good Morning Britain after co-host Alex Beresford accused him of "diabolical behaviour".
Who is Piers Morgan?
Piers Morgan may be best known to Australians for his viral interview with Liberal backbencher Craig Kelly in which Morgan grilled the politician over his claims that the 2020 summer bushfires were caused by high fuel loads and not climate change.
But the 55-year-old former tabloid newspaper editor has a chequered history as an outspoken icon of the British media and far-reaching connections with the rich and famous.
Morgan was one of the youngest editors ever appointed to a national newspaper when he was picked to captain Rupert Murdoch's masthead, News of the World, at the age of 28 in 1994.
The following year he took charge of tabloid The Daily Mirror — he was sacked in 2004 for publishing pictures of alleged abuse of Iraqi prisoners by British troops that proved to be fake.
He testified before the Leveson Inquiry into phone hacking in 2011 that he did not think the practice took place at the Mirror while he was editor.
Morgan went on to be judge on Britain's Got Talent (he was on the panel the year Scottish charity worker Susan Boyle won with a stunning performance of I Dreamed A Dream) and America's Got Talent.
Supplied
)He took over Larry King's timeslot on CNN in 2011 after the veteran American newsman stepped down, but the show, Piers Morgan Live, failed to rate and was cancelled in early 2014.
Morgan has been a presenter on ITV's Good Morning Britain, which has doubled its audience share from 14 to 28 per cent since he and co-host Susan Reid joined.
How does he know Meghan Markle?
Morgan writes in his Mail Online columns that Meghan sent him a direct message on Twitter in 2015 after he followed her and other cast members of the US television drama Suits, on which Meghan played the paralegal Rachel.
He said they corresponded on a regular basis over the next few months, discussing the show, Meghan's trip to Rwanda for the United Nations, spinning classes and calligraphy.
In June 2016, Morgan said Meghan suggested they meet up while she was in London and the pair had drinks at the Scarsdale Tavern in Kensington for 90 minutes before he put her in a taxi to a dinner at a club in Mayfair.
Morgan said that was the dinner where Meghan first met Harry.
Reuters: Mark Blinch
)When the couple's relationship was made public, Morgan praised Meghan and her qualifications to join the British royal family.
"Ambitious about her career as an actress, yes. But there's nothing wrong with that, and she's genuinely talented as fans of her TV show Suits will know," he wrote in December 2016.
"More importantly, she seemed to have a real and touching concern for the future of the planet and its more impoverished and vulnerable members.
"As for Meghan's suitability, consider this: she's lived life a bit, professionally and sexually, and is not a naive 19-year-old virgin like Diana."
What happened next?
Morgan initially defended Meghan in his columns — hitting out at her father Thomas Markle for colluding with the paparazzi, and her half-siblings for expecting an invite to the royal wedding after slamming her in the press.
"If someone trashed the woman I was going to marry, they'd have less chance of getting an invite than Kim Jong Un," Morgan wrote in May 2018.
But after the wedding, Morgan criticised Meghan for her reported intention to "fight for feminism" and warned she would find things difficult if she started "lecturing us all on equality, while your servants fluff your gold monogrammed pillows and your chauffeur warms up the fleet of vintage Rolls Royces".
Then after two columns in which Morgan changed his mind about Thomas and called on Meghan to call her "loving father", he declared he had been ghosted by the Duchess.
"If you're not familiar with the term 'ghosting', it's when someone you thought was a friend suddenly cuts off all communication with you, with zero warning, and then you never hear another word from that person again."
"I remember it very clearly because it's never happened to me before."
Since then, Morgan has written about Meghan, and to a lesser extent Harry, in 32 Mail Online columns with vitriolic critique.
What has Meghan Markle said?
Nothing.
Meghan has not publicly responded to any of the comments made by Piers Morgan, nor has she spoken about him since their meeting in 2016.
What happened on Good Morning Britain?
Following Meghan and Harry's interview with Oprah, Morgan cast doubts on the 39-year-old's comments about her mental health and suicidal thoughts, and royal officials' knowledge of them.
"I'm sorry, I don't believe a word she says. I wouldn't believe her if she read me a weather report," Morgan said on Monday.
When his co-presenter Reid noted that Meghan had said she had been driven to the verge of taking her own life, Morgan replied: "She says that, yes."
On Tuesday co-host Alex Beresford criticised Morgan for his treatment of the royal couple, at which point Morgan walked off the show.
LoadingBeresford: I understand that you don't like Meghan Markle, you made it so clear a number of times on this program, a number of times. And I understand that 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.
Morgan: OK, I'm done with this, sorry. Can't do this.
Beresford: This is absolutely diabolical behaviour, I'm sorry but Piers spouts off on a regular basis and we all have to sit there and listen — 6.30 to 7.30 to yesterday was incredibly hard to watch.
Morgan addressed his comments about Meghan's mental health on Tuesday's show.
"When we talked about this yesterday, I said as an all-encompassing thing I don't believe what Meghan Markle is saying generally in this interview, and I still have serious concerns about the veracity of a lot of what she said, but let me just state for the record about my position on mental illness and on suicide," Piers said.
"They should be taken extremely seriously and if someone is feeling that way they should get the treatment and help that they need every time, and if they belong to an institution like the royal family and they go and seek that help they should absolutely be given it," he said.
Morgan has since left the show following discussions with ITV.
"Following discussions with ITV, Piers Morgan has decided now is the time to leave Good Morning Britain," ITV said in a statement.
"ITV has accepted this decision and has nothing further to add."
ITV chief executive Carolyn McCall said the broadcaster was committed to supporting mental health and that she believed Meghan "completely".
Britain's media regulator launched a probe into Monday's episode of Good Morning Britain after receiving 41,015 complaints about Morgan's comments.
https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMibWh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmFiYy5uZXQuYXUvbmV3cy8yMDIxLTAzLTEwL21lZ2hhbi1tYXJrbGUtcGllcnMtbW9yZ2FuLWdvb2QtbW9ybmluZy1icml0YWluLXdoYXQtaGFwcGVuZWQvMTMyMzMyODTSASdodHRwczovL2FtcC5hYmMubmV0LmF1L2FydGljbGUvMTMyMzMyODQ?oc=5
2021-03-10 05:52:03Z
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