Piers Morgan (17 page)

However, he wasn’t about to shirk away from the tough stuff either. ‘My kids ask me questions about Iraq,’ he continued. ‘They see it on TV and they are not too sure what it’s all about. We’ll cover it with graphics – you have to make it exciting and easy on the eye. It won’t be politically biased; it won’t be right wing or left wing – it will be independent. So don’t worry, the paper won’t be full of all my old
Mirror
campaigns which I couldn’t quite finish off.’

As with everything he did, debate began to rage about whether or not his latest venture would be a success and who would buy it, and if, as Piers said, it really was the first paper of its kind (in fact, there had been other children’s newspapers in the past). ‘It shows there’s an appetite there,’ he insisted. ‘There are 193 magazines directly
targeted at nine- to twelve-year-olds in this country and there has never been a proper newspaper. We think it’s an untapped market. In France, the biggest-selling paper is a kids’ paper and it sells 200,000 a day. No one has tried to do it properly in this country. I’m pretty confident we will do pretty big numbers; we are much more voracious buyers of newspapers than the French, so there has to be a chance we can accelerate to 200,000 to 300,000 copies. We don’t want to set targets we can’t hit, but we think there’s a completely open marketplace.’

Whatever the outcome, his enthusiasm was infectious but there were other developments in the background, too.

For a start, although completely unknown to the wider public (not least because Piers refused to talk about his private life), he and Celia Walden were now an item. He was still not formally divorced, but his marriage to Marion was so firmly in the past that it was only a matter of time.

What’s more, his television career was also going well. Of course, he had been appearing on television for years and had graduated to such senior roles as being a guest on both
Parkinson
and
Dame Edna Everage,
but he increasingly hosted shows himself. Rather naughtily, perhaps he was also making a documentary called
The Real Cherie,
but others (and they were increasingly focused on real-life stories) were on the lines of
You Can’t Fire Me, I’m Famous,
talking to such celebrities as Martine McCutcheon, Donny Osmond, Ozzy Osbourne, Vinnie Jones and Naomi Campbell (now they were friends again) about what happened when life took a turn for the worse.
Piers displayed a natural empathy for his subjects many wouldn’t have credited him with. He also came across well on screen: a touch of arrogance, perhaps, but on the whole he seemed more self-confident than anything else. It might have taken him a while to get there but he was becoming a natural on TV.

Of course, the title of his new show was ironic, Piers himself having had an extremely high-profile sacking, and yet again it showed he had lost none of his instinct for what makes good copy. First on the show was Martine McCutcheon, who entertained enormously not only because she talked dramatically of being sacked from the role of Tiffany in
EastEnders,
but also in revealing that, when she filmed
Love Actually
with Hugh Grant, a friend dared her to put her tongue in his mouth in the kissing scene. She was all set to do so, she admitted, when he got there first!

Piers was simply brilliant at eliciting stories such as this and it was exactly how he had started out, first as a cub reporter and then on ‘Bizarre’ – getting the famous to admit to cheeky goings-on. But not every journalist in the print medium can transfer this skill to the small screen and he was getting better with every passing week. Ozzy Osbourne was next up, revealing that, when he bit off a bat’s head on stage in the 1980s, he was promptly rushed to hospital to be tested for rabies. He then disclosed the reason why he stopped trying to kill his wife Sharon: ‘After I was charged with murder, I’ve never touched her since.’

Naturally, all the guests were carefully selected; Piers
might have been good at charming stories out of them, but he and his production team still picked pretty good subjects on whom to work their charm. If ‘charm’ is the right word, that is. Matters took a slight turn for the bizarre when Vinnie Jones came on to talk about the day he nearly bit the nose off a journalist, an act that resulted in his being fired as a newspaper sportswriter. The person who fired him, it turned out, was none other than one Piers Morgan, then editor of the
News Of The World.
Vinnie was so upset by the decision that he went into the woods behind his home intending to commit suicide, but didn’t go ahead and instead went on to enjoy a highly successful acting career.

While the series might not have been making the front pages, it was still pretty good going – the shows were at least being talked about. In a more minor way, Piers was setting the agenda once again. Rather more significantly, he was beginning to make a name for himself in the US, for he had started to appear on
America’s Got Talent.
The reason for this – and it was to be a crucial turning point in his new life – was that music executive and entrepreneur Simon Cowell had suggested him as a judge because he himself was unable to appear due to the conditions of his
American Idol
contract. In fact, this was to be a
life-changing
show for Piers.

David Hasselhoff, one of his fellow judges, summed up what was happening to him now. ‘Piers! Piers is piercing,’ he said. ‘Piers is rude. All of America hates him because he made a little boy cry on the show, ha! But now that he is a star, I have taught him that he is fair game because of all
the crap he used to write about us: welcome to our world, Piersy, pal! I am going to tell everyone that he is gay and see how he likes it.’

But Piers took it all in good part; asked what his guilty pleasure was, he replied, ‘It would have to be David Hasselhoff. He is my fellow judge on an American show called
America’s Got Talent,
where performers compete for a £1 million prize. It must be Hasselhoff, everything about him smacks of guilty pleasures.’

And there was a serious point behind all this: Piers was now becoming a mainstream celebrity. No longer a high-profile editor, rather he was growing famous in his own right, as much as the celebrities that he himself used to feature in his newspapers. If the
Press Gazette
wasn’t going so well (and, by the end of 2006, both he and Freud appeared to have had enough), then he could afford to take it on the chin because he was beginning to move into a different league: he was on the verge of becoming an A-list star.

Certainly, his already high profile was coming along in leaps and bounds. He continued to pen profiles for
GQ
magazine and spread himself across the media in Britain, while in the US he unleashed a stream of vitriol towards contestants that had the country both thrilled and bemused. ‘Are you deaf? Are you dumb? Or are you just so arrogant about that act that you think that’s all you have to do?’ he asked Quick Change, a magic duo. The female half left the stage in tears, while the male spat, ‘You’re allowed to judge, but you’re not allowed to belittle.’

But this was something that Piers was good at and it increased his profile no end. He knew exactly what he was doing, too. ‘The British public, quite rightly, thinks it’s great fun to abuse, heckle and generally deflate the massively inflated egos of people who throw themselves on the altar of celebrity,’ he wrote in one of his many media outlets. ‘America is different. Fame there, in any degree, is a badge of honour and respect. Americans love celebrities: they revere them, salute them, want to touch them, bask in their reflected glory.’ Piers, however, wasn’t about to bask in anyone else’s reflected glory and this went down a treat with the Americans.

Now on the verge of becoming a major star, he was doing so well in the US that there were plans afoot to run a similar programme on British TV. Even so, he refused to take anything for granted; leaving the
Mirror
in the way he did had been a shock, however much he might insist that he’d had it coming, and the new world of show business he’d so recently entered was one of the most insecure on the planet.

‘The second series might flop,’ he told an interviewer from the
Independent on Sunday. ‘Britain’s Got Talent
might not get re-commissioned and I’ll be back, talking to a bunch of bank clerks in Liverpool. That would be life. I sincerely want every
Independent on Sunday
reader to know I share their view that it would be much more fun if I fell flat on my face in about a year and a half’s time.’

In fact, he was already faltering in one respect. In December 2006, the
Press Gazette
went into receivership,
losing Piers about £250,000 (although, given the projects he was now working on, he could perhaps afford to take a loss). Eventually, it was rescued and given a new life on the internet where it remains to this day, but that chapter of his life was firmly closed.

Despite this setback, his personal life was much happier. He and Marion were still technically married, but the relationship with Celia was going from strength to strength. Marion herself, meanwhile, had a new boyfriend: the
News of the World
showbiz columnist, Rav Singh. It would be a while before the couple divorced but everyone involved had already calmed down about the separation.

At the beginning of 2007, Piers continued to make television appearances, signing up for a celebrity version of
The Apprentice
for Comic Relief. His fellow contestants were former No. 10 spin doctor Alastair Campbell, actor Ross Kemp, DJ Danny Baker, actor Rupert Everett, singer Cheryl Cole, comic Jo Brand, actress Maureen Lipman, style guru Trinny Woodall and Birmingham City football boss Karren Brady. It was all in a good cause and kept his profile high. The teams were boys versus girls and they were tasked with running a celebrity funfair on London’s South Bank.

Cheryl Cole, also to make quite a name for herself on the back of reality TV, described the experience. ‘It was much worse than the nerves I get before I go on stage because I was completely outside my comfort zone,’ she admitted. ‘When I walked in on the first day, I felt intimidated. I thought, what am I doing here with all these people; what
the hell am I going to be expected to do? I knew it was important that we raised lots of money for Comic Relief so I felt a great sense of responsibility.’

There was a bit of a clash on the day, unsurprisingly involving Piers. A chef from the nearby restaurant Cecconi’s went to help the girls; Piers attempted to capture him and ended up being kneed by Trinny Woodall. ‘Trinny is a very dominant personality, very strong-minded,’ said Cheryl. ‘People think I am feisty but I seemed quiet by comparison. I was scared she might criticise my clothes, but luckily I escaped.

‘She was a pretty impressive negotiator and managed to get a friend of hers to pay £150,000 for a ticket for our funfair. I was speechless: this woman offered the money like it was nothing – people buy a house for that amount. With the likes of Piers on the boys’ team, I thought we would stand no chance so I just started ringing everyone I knew. The rest of the band came to help me. I was so grateful when the girls arrived that I threw my arms around them. [Her then husband] Ashley also came down to help. I got Simon Cowell and Chris Evans along too, so I was pretty pleased with myself. [But] there was bitching among the girls; it wasn’t all smooth sailing.’

In fact, it made for extremely entertaining television. All the celebrities were called on to drum up contacts to make donations but it was Rupert Everett who froze. ‘Julia Roberts, Sharon Stone, a genuine superstar of that ilk,’ urged Piers. ‘Tell Madonna to stop buying babies and chip in a bit.’

‘I’ve been going through my address book – I don’t know anybody,’ Rupert rather tragically insisted. ‘I have virtual relationships with people. You know what I mean?’

‘Not really, no,’ said Alastair Campbell, perhaps unhelpfully.

‘I don’t know any of these people particularly well,’ continued Rupert, ‘and I’m frozen in front of the camera.’

‘But you’re an actor,’ countered Piers.

‘Yes, but you need dialogue to be an actor. Anyone got a cigarette?’ was Rupert’s response.

‘Please don’t smoke,’ said Alastair. ‘I hate smoking.’

Everett subsequently walked out of the competition.

‘We should demand another celebrity,’ pronounced Piers, ‘preferably one who doesn’t answer to the description Big Girl’s Blouse.’ He then managed to persuade Anne Robinson, Chris Evans and Mick Hucknall to help out and personally raised about £200,000. The girls did really well, however, in getting Take That to man the dodgems. The girls’ team won, and Alastair Campbell, leader of the losing boys’ team, took Piers and Danny back into the boardroom again, where one of them would be fired. Campbell started off by having a go at Piers, telling him that he should know a lot of celebrities through his newspaper work and life in show business.

‘I do!’ insisted Piers.

‘No, you
say
you do,’ said Alastair.

‘It’s your demeanour that has cost you this,’ decided Sir Alan Sugar. ‘Piers Morgan, you’re fired.’

‘
Again
?’ asked Alastair.

Off screen, Piers’ first book had done so well that a second –
Don’t You Know Who I Am?
– was subsequently commissioned and published in 2008. Again, a fuss was made as more indiscretions hit the streets. Of course, he himself was enjoying the whole experience for he had finally owned up: losing his job had been hard but it was beginning to come good. At last, his sacking was shown to be a tremendous piece of good luck, given that he was now firmly on the road to becoming extremely rich and famous.

P
iers had been a huge success as a judge in
America's Got Talent,
although he was also a somewhat controversial figure. In the US version of the show, he was becoming known for the rigour of his opinions, but he was also being tough on small children. ‘You are not as good as Beyoncé, you don't look like her and, frankly, your mother probably pushed you out there,' he told one six-year-old girl, provoking the wrath of none other than Jerry Springer.

‘Stop it, that's wrong!' he told Piers live, before adding on the show's blog, ‘I really was upset with Piers – I think that was out of line.'

Nor was it the end of the matter. ‘First, you do not attack a six-year-old,' he told the magazine
TV Guide.
‘You also can't invite [kids] on the show and then attack them for coming; that is too much pressure.'

And it wasn't a one-off either; a nine-year-old called Breeze had also come to Piers' attention. ‘I feel it's not
so much about you but what your mum wants,' he told her. ‘She's pushed you into doing this and what she really wants is a million dollars and a new car.'

Springer (who knew something about making good television) brought the mother out to defend herself, but Piers was having none of it. ‘I just don't believe a word of that,' he insisted.

It might have been unkind but it certainly got him noticed, as did the interviews he continued to do for
GQ
. Quite a few made the headlines, as when Boris Johnson, then Shadow Education Minister, confessed to drug-taking. ‘I think I was once given cocaine, but I sneezed and so it did not go up my nose. In fact, I may have been doing icing sugar,' he recalled. ‘There was a period before university when I had quite a few [joints], but, funnily enough, not much at university. It was jolly nice but apparently it is very different these days, much stronger. I have become very illiberal about it – I don't want my kids to take drugs.'

Piers then asked him if he could imagine having sex with Cherie Blair.

‘I could, yeah. No, don't put that in! God! Not me,' was Boris's reply.

It was one of a series of colourful admissions that would provide the nation with great entertainment and kept Piers in the limelight as much as those he was interviewing.

But the real spotlight was now on
Britain's Got Talent,
which started in June 2007. Following the success of the US version of the show, it was now considered ripe for a
run in the UK. The series featured a succession of amateur entertainers, some very raw indeed, in front of three judges: Piers, Simon Cowell and actress Amanda Holden. It was to turn into one of the biggest success stories on television, but to begin with, of course, no one quite knew where it would go.

The show deliberately harked back to the days of seaside talent shows. ‘Well, I've always been a big fan of entertainment in the 1950s and 1960s,' explained Cowell. ‘To me, that was the absolute pinnacle. There was a kind of naivety in those days that I enjoy. We went through a phase in the 1990s when we became incredibly cynical and I didn't like that. Now we're back on track because I don't think tastes change.'

The whole team was very excited and Amanda Holden gave an interview about being approached by Cowell. ‘Pretty much everything he touches turns to gold, so I was delighted to be asked,' she revealed. ‘I sit between Simon and Piers Morgan, the former newspaper editor. Simon is always getting ribbed by Piers for draping his arm around my chair – he has a certain magnetic charm but that's just the way he is: he loves it. But both of them try to wind me up. If I say something they disagree with, they go, “What do you know, anyway?” But when I reply, “I've been in this business for fifteen years, I've auditioned, performed and acted, what do
you
know?” they soon shut up.'

And on screen Piers showed, crucially, that he could hold his own against Simon Cowell (not that anyone would have doubted it), while the two engaged in a friendly rivalry.

‘Simon, you might be losing your touch,' Piers told him at one stage.

‘I'm not,' said Simon. ‘You're trying to make yourself popular – cheap!'

Amanda Holden summed it up. ‘Simon and Piers are just like naughty schoolboys,' she said. ‘They like to wind me up. If I disagree with their verdict, they say, “What do you know? You have no credibility.” And I say, “So, Piers, weren't you sacked? And Simon, didn't you promote Zig and Zag?” That shuts them up! There is a real rivalry between them and they argue a lot on the show. I feel like their mother – like taking them by the scruff of the neck and saying, “Right, stop squabbling, it's straight to bed with no tea for you two.”'

In fact, the chemistry between all three was working extremely well, although the reviews were mixed. ‘The opening show saw Opportunity Knock for a bloke banging an ashtray with a set of keys (admittedly more talented than last year's
X Factor
runner-up, Ray Quinn), a kid who could make his ears squeak and Rupert “the piano-playing pig”,' wrote the
Mirror
's television critic Jim Shelley. ‘Even Cowell voted Rupert through. He and his sparring partner, TV's Piers Morgan, were in surprisingly charitable mood. (Come on, Piers! Call yourself American TV's new hate figure? I was relying on you to at least make some nasty remarks about Rupert having a long career ahead of him – as a round of bacon sandwiches.) He didn't do that badly, though. “Don't worry about him [Cowell] not liking you,” Piers
told the pig. “He likes to be the most talented pig in the room.”'

Piers' reputation with children was still going strong, however, and he drew boos from the audience when he bluntly told child dancers Luke and Charlotte that he thought they'd be irritating but instead he had found them charming. Sometimes, he flirted with the contestants, as with Victoria Armstrong, a raunchy dancer from Manchester. ‘I'd like to see more of you, Victoria,' said Piers. ‘Literally.' He then asked her out for dinner.

Britain really was beginning to talk about the new series and the impact it was to have on the cultural life of the nation became ever more clear. As the final approached, the country became engrossed with an ‘opera-singing phone salesman' garnering a lot of publicity; this was one Paul Potts, whose life was to change after his appearance on the programme.

‘When I signed up to do this show, Simon Cowell and I shared a vision that there would be this guy doing an ordinary job, unassuming, who quietly had this amazing talent and that we could provide a platform so that the whole world could see what he could do,' pronounced Piers. ‘You are that guy.'

And Simon Cowell agreed. ‘This is what the show is all about,' he said. ‘He's a normal guy, a great talent and came in as the underdog. It was one of the most incredible auditions I've ever seen. He can win if he can just repeat that performance. I wouldn't give him a makeover. Part of his appeal is that he's not trying. I could put him in Il Divo!'

All the best parts of
BGT
(and the various other projects Piers was involved in) featured a particular story that caught the public's imagination and in this case it was Potts. Paul (36 at the time and from Port Talbot) was a quiet and unassuming man, who had been working for the Carphone Warehouse when he appeared on the show. He had previously trained as an opera singer but, after he had had a benign tumour removed and then an accident in which he was knocked off his motorbike, he gave up singing for years until his wife Julie-Ann encouraged him on to the programme. When he first appeared, the audience giggled and the judges looked unsure – but then he opened his mouth and began to sing ‘Nessun Dorma' and everyone was transfixed.

‘I don't think they were expecting much,' Paul modestly said afterwards. ‘I'm a bit short and overweight and had a cheap old suit on, and the hairdresser had used a No. 2 on my hair instead of a No. 4, so it made me look a bit bald. But, when I sang, I made sure I looked at the judges and saw Simon's jaw drop – I knew then I must have done all right.'

In fact, he ended up not only winning the series but also singing before HM the Queen at the Royal Variety Performance. Headlines such as
PAVA-POTTY
appeared and the nation was enthralled.

Meanwhile, Kelvin MacKenzie watched his former protégé approvingly from the side. ‘Congratulations to my friend Piers Morgan on doing something first achieved by The Beatles in the 60s – being No. 1 in America and
Britain,' he wrote in his
Sun
column. ‘Incredibly the show
Britain's Got Talent
and its American version are going out simultaneously this week, with Piers as a judge in both. The show is already number one in the US and, having seen the overnight ratings in which they thrashed
Big Brother
three to one, it's clearly number one over here. An astonishing achievement.'

Piers freely admitted that he had always loved celebrity and was enjoying his new life. ‘It is something I always wanted since I was a showbiz editor in my early days as a journalist,' he declared. ‘You don't get to meet the stars of stage, screen and music without something of their lifestyle drawing you to it like a magnet. It's a different world from what most of us are used to: the private jets, the yachts, the villas and the glamour. And it is a world of glamour. Of course, I wanted to be a part of it – most showbiz journalists feel like that.'

And now he truly was a part of it all.
Britain's Got Talent
proved a massive success, on top of which Piers was also becoming famous in the US. Another series of
You Can't Fire Me, I'm Famous
loomed, and he was his usual
self-deprecating
self on the subject. ‘They agreed to do it with me because they know that I was also publicly humiliated about my sacking in the media,' he explained. ‘We have something in common and the original interviews with people like Jade Goody, who cried for ages, Louis Walsh and Anne Robinson took three hours before being edited to the viewing length. Even Naomi Campbell agreed to be interviewed.'

So how was it, he was asked, when he himself became news in the wake of his own sacking? ‘Awful. But it's what the press does – I should know that,' he responded. ‘When it happened, it was quite devastating but it wasn't a case of finding out who my enemies were – I already knew the answer to that: it was who my friends were. They came to me, took me out for a Chinese or a beer, and it's nice to know that there are people like that who you rely on.'

He was certainly having the last laugh now. And, no matter how competitive they might have been on stage, he was well aware who he had to thank for his career renaissance: Simon Cowell. Indeed, Cowell was playing as important a role in Piers' career in his forties as Kelvin MacKenzie had done in his twenties and he wasn't about to forget it. ‘I have been surprised at how things have accelerated in my career,' conceded Piers, ‘but I owe everything to Simon Cowell. It was he who got me on to the
Britain's Got Talent
show and the American one. And both series were top-rated. I'm loving every minute of it, although Cowell can be a notorious prankster. When I walk on stage, he'll have arranged for the audience to call out or hold up placards saying: “Who are you?” Or he'll prime them to sit in total silence when I appear, then give me the slow hand clap.'

And he was absolutely loving his time in the spotlight. ‘It really annoys me when certain celebrities moan about their star status and the attention they get,' he went on. ‘People like Ian Hislop, who loves to dish it out to people but can't take it himself, or the luvvies of the acting world
like Hugh Grant and Jude Law, who are forever saying they can't stand being photographed by the paparazzi everywhere they go and then purposefully go to places where the paparazzi will be.

‘I certainly couldn't be like that. I love the attention, make no mistake about it, but, contrary to what people might think, I am not motivated by money. I don't want the huge houses and yachts – I've got a beautiful flat in London and a home in the country; I can take holidays at my favourite place in France, which is Eze, near Monaco, and that suits me fine.'

Indeed, everything in his life appeared to be going well, including family. Still officially married to Marion, he saw his children regularly and they were enjoying their father's stardom, too. ‘My kids go to a weekly boarding school, the same as I did,' he said. ‘They love it, because they come home every weekend and they are coming out to Los Angeles along with their mother soon, which is going to be marvellous because obviously I miss them, despite how concentrated I have to be on all of the work.'

You Can't Fire Me, I'm Famous
continued to make headlines, too. In 2007, the late Jade Goody appeared in her first interview since the race row with Shilpa Shetty in the
Big Brother
house and before she was diagnosed with the cancer that was to kill her. The programme got a lot of attention. ‘I had bad depression,' she told Piers when speaking about the aftermath of the
Big Brother
furore. ‘I was on sleeping pills and on suicide watch. It's the worst thing a mother can say, “There's no hope.” But I snapped
out of that quickly because I've got kids and they are my life. I'm not doing this to be back in magazines or on TV, but I've got a mortgage and bills to be paid.'

And still there were those
GQ
interviews, too. In the latest, Sir Richard Branson admitted in fairly graphic detail to being a member of the Mile High Club. ‘I was sitting in Economy on a Freddie Laker flight next to this very attractive lady as we headed to LA,' he recalled. ‘We got chatting and it went a bit further. And it was every man's dream, to be honest. I was about nineteen, I think. I remember getting off the plane and she turned to me and said, “Look, it's slightly embarrassing but I am meeting my husband at Arrivals, would you mind holding back a bit?” But it was a memorable flight. The problem with plane loos generally is that they are very small and the acrobatics can't take too long because there's no room and people start banging on the door. What I remember vividly is seeing four handprints on the mirror as we finished and thinking I'd better wipe them off.'