Piers Morgan, In Tucker Carlson Interview, Defends Dismissing Meghan Markle’s Claims: “I Wasn’t Allowed To Have An Opinion”

Ted Johnson
·7 min read
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Piers Morgan, in his first interview since quitting ITV’s Good Morning Britain, reiterated his dismissal of claims that Meghan Markle made in her sitdown with Oprah Winfrey last month.

In an interview with Tucker Carlson for his Fox Nation show Tucker Carlson Today, Morgan said that he still doesn’t “believe what they were saying, and in particular I don’t believe what Meghan Markle said. 17 different claims by the pair of them have now been proven to be either completely untrue, or massively exaggerated or unprovable.”

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“I didn’t believe Meghan Markle, a huge furor erupted through the day, I was an outrage, I wasn’t allowed to have an opinion that I didn’t believe what she was saying even though it was clear to me in real time as I was watching the interview that there were a number of things which just couldn’t be true.”

There was an extensive backlash to Morgan’s comments following the broadcast of Winfrey’s interview last month, in which Markle said that she had suicidal thoughts when she was pregnant but that she could not get help from the Royal staff.

“It’s not for me to say whether she felt suicidal, that’s only for her to know,” Morgan told Carlson, per Fox News.

Morgan said, “What I was taking issue with, is she claims she went to two members of the royal household — a senior aide and also human resources. And she told both of them she was feeling suicidal, and need help and both of them rejected that and said that she couldn’t get help because it would be bad for the brand of the royal family. I just find that impossible to believe that you would have two people in the palace who would be that callous to a woman telling them that she was suicidal.”

Excerpts of the interview also were shown on Fox News’ Tucker Carlson Tonight. The network has promoted the interview as a highlight of its subscription streaming service Fox Nation, with Carlson having launched his new show last month.

Carlson has pointed to Morgan’s exit from Good Morning Britain, following the furor over his comments, as another example of cancel culture. He told viewers that Morgan has “taken stands that have really cost him.” But he has hardly been silent, as he’s relayed what happened via a column in the Daily Mail and in the Carlson interview, which stretched over an hour.

Following the Winfrey interview with Markle and Prince Harry, Morgan went on a tirade on Good Morning Britain, telling viewers, “I don’t believe a word she says, Meghan Markle. I wouldn’t believe her if she read me a weather report.” That prompted more than 57,000 complaints to the UK’s regulator.

In the aftermath, Morgan said that he was told by ITV’s director of television that he would have to apologize or leave the show.

Morgan walked off the show during an exchange with Alex Beresford, a guest presenter. Beresford later said that “I hoped we could reach a place of understanding. It’s sad that we weren’t able to get there, but challenging his opinion was not an outrage. On this occasion, we have to agree to disagree. I didn’t want him to quit, but I did want him to listen.”

In the interview with Carlson, Morgan said that as he watched the interview, he thought that he was witnessing “the most extraordinarily disingenuous smear hit job on the royal family, on the queen, on the monarchy, and, frankly, on Britain, my country.”

“And I was not going to have it,” Morgan said. “And so, I went on air on the Monday morning, and I gave it back … and I said quite clearly that I didn’t believe anything Meghan Markle was saying.

“And here we are a month later, Tucker, and frankly I’ve had plenty of time to think about this, and I’ve had plenty of time to analyze all the analysis of what she was saying and what Prince Harry was saying, and I still don’t believe what they were saying.”

Morgan noted that “there’s the position of Prince Harry in all this. He is attached to many of the biggest mental health charities in Britain. He makes no secret of his desire that everyone who feels depressed or anxious or has suicidal thoughts to get immediate help, and yet here was his wife who says she was feeling constantly suicidal, and Prince Harry never sought to get her help. And I find that very hard to believe frankly.”

Morgan also challenged Markle’s claim that, before the birth of her son, someone in the royal family expressed concerns “how dark his skin might be when he’s born.”

Morgan told Carlson, “We simply don’t know, and we don’t even know who supposed to have said this, but then Harry was asked the same question, and Harry didn’t say it was several conversations when Meghan was pregnant. He said it was a conversation that happened way before at the start of their relationship, years before Meghan said it happened.

“So now we have a massive inconsistency. One conversation, not two. Maybe a year and a half, two years before Meghan said it happened. She didn’t even hear it. We don’t know the context. We don’t know what was said.”

He said that “the idea that the royal family and the queen in particular are now being depicted as a racist entity, a racist queen presiding over a racist monarchy when she is the head of the commonwealth, I’m sorry I find it completely disgusting.”

But Winfrey said that Prince Harry made clear to her that the comment was not made by the Queen or her husband, Prince Philip. Harry, however, would not disclose who said it.

Morgan also accused Beresford of waging a “premeditated attack” on him, but acknowledged that he should not have walked off the show.

“I walked off for a few minutes, then I realized this is stupid,” Morgan said. “I shouldn’t have walked off. You know, you should always be able to have a debate.”

He added, “I was angry in the moment that he was trying to personalize this, make it I had some personal vendetta about Meghan Markle, which I don’t. And I came back. And we then had a pretty lively and quite enlightening, like half hour debate about this.”

Carlson and Morgan each criticized Winfrey for the way that she conducted the interview.

Morgan said that it “wasn’t really an interview. This was her allowing two friends the platform to spray gun Britain, the monarchy, the royal family, the Queen, Prince William’s wife. You name it, they took them down. And that’s fine. That’s their decision. It’s their life, they can do what they want. But to do it when you’re still calling yourself Duke and Duchess of Sussex, I’m sorry, that is rank hypocrisy.”

In a clip that also ran on Carlson’s Fox News show, Morgan said that “you would have thought people might be thanking me” for the boost in the ratings of Good Morning Britain.

“Instead, I was basically corralled into a position where I was told, you either got to apologize for effectively disbelieving Meghan Markle’s version of events here or your position is untenable, and you have to leave,” he said.

Morgan also addressed Sharon Osbourne’s departure from The Talk, saying that she “was taken down very deliberately and it was all because she dared to tweet that I was entitled to my opinion. And then because she said that on Twitter, she was attacked on her own show by her co-host who said that that effectively was her supporting someone who said racist things.”

Osbourne departed the show late last month, with CBS putting out a statement saying that they “concluded that Sharon’s behavior toward her co-hosts during the March 10 episode did not align with our values for a respectful workplace.”

More to come.

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