Piers Morgan: Dealing With Repeat Failure, Death Threats & Regrets | E137

Could you do me a quick favor if you're listening to this? Hit the follow or subscribe button. It helps more than you think and we invite subscribers every month to see the show in person. Opinions to me are the spice of life if I don't have an opinion there is something wrong with you I am peters

morgan

uncensored show some respect why do you want to deport me Can I respond? However, I am a news junkie and it started when I was six or seven years old. I mean, when I was a teenager I became very stubborn.

I read a report last year that said 33 million people in Britain have mental illness. No, they're not, it's bullshit, we're spending too much time fostering a kind of self-pity. I'll misunderstand the use of the word, but wait, 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 it as a matter of principle and the principle was that I have the right. In my opinion, why should my children be exposed to

death

threats

simply for being my children? Cancer culture is a virus as deadly over time as the coronavirus.

The public wants someone to cancel culture. I want to stimulate debate and arrive at some kind of truth. Have you ever regretted something you said? Without further ado, I'm Stephen Bartlett and this is the diary of a CEO of the US edition. I hope no one listens to you, but if so, please keep this to yourself Stephen, this is quite interesting. You're usually in the uh I'm already uncomfortable, I see your stuff, you're forensic, you know, you dig deeper and I'm like, I don't know, I really don't know why I'm doing it, other than at least one of my kids is a big fan. yours and said, Dad, you have to do this podcast.

Everyone listens to this podcast, so whatever you do works, so I'm here. They are fantastic children. Thanks for being here. What I was thinking was where do I start with this conversation and honestly the whole point of my curiosity is how you became the person you are today and I look back at your story, especially your early years, the loss of your father. Certain experiences you've had when you were younger You're a self-aware guy You're an honest man What are the factors at that preteen age that contributed to Pierce Morgan being the man we all know? anomaly I'm an addict I'm a news addict and it started when I was six or seven, which is just strange.

I have had four children. The idea of ​​being six or seven years old and addicted to what's going on in the world. to the newspapers I used to sit and read the daily mail my parents used to get the mail I used to read it from start to finish when I was six or seven years old so from a very early age I had that kind of fascination and curiosity about what was happening and I wanted know what was happening and what to think about it. I mean, as I grew into my teens I became very stubborn, you know, getting thrown into my local pub on a Saturday night for getting drunk and disorderly, they just meant. to the opinion that they had been too loud, so I would argue with people and then it would get out of control and they would kick me out.

I always got back to why you would argue with people. Because I used to feel strongly. about things you know, people see me hyperventilating about vegan sausage rolls. I think how can any sensible human being in the world get so angry at a vegan sausage roll. I don't know, except that when I was young I used to get angry at all kinds of things. of things now not to the point of hitting people or, you know, manifesting in some type of violence, but I would be passionate about arguing and most of my family is the same.

My grandmother was very stubborn. My mother is very stubborn. My brothers. they're probably the quiet ones it's one of the three of us when we leave 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 have to worry about what's happening in the world and you have It's important to figure out what you think about it and I particularly think it's important now and there's so much opinion out there that people are going to the right people to hear the right kind of things because there's so much nonsense being thrown around in the sort of Twitter sphere and others on Facebook, but that's why I think your show is so successful, your podcast, because then people appreciate the more reasonable view that you have of things and the way that you try and get to the truth about people and things. things, so on the one hand, I love having a discussion and having your opinion heard and passing on information, and then there's this other part that I tried to understand, which was what you said

repeat

edly even in You were 16 and 17 and you I liked being the center of attention, so I ask where because that feels more like a psychological thing.

Many people don't like to be the same. I just wanted to be famous. I used to practice. my autograph when I was a kid why I regularly wanted to be fabulous I used to collect autographs so I was a big fan of cricket in particular my brother and I used to go and stand outside the pavilions at the professional games and wait for the players to come out and get the autograph by ian Botham Rich's autograph and I used to practice mine then I started writing to world leaders. I have all these letters from my Margaret Thatcher and Ted Heath when he was Prime Minister and from world leaders around the world.

I have letters from donald bradman, you know, Shaftland, the greatest cricketer who ever lived. I used to write to him and reply to him, so I spent all my time in strange correspondences with the most famous people in the world and silently thinking that I would love it. Being one of these people must be a big center of attention, everyone who looks at you talks about you, good, bad and ugly, so yeah, I mean, there are pieces of paper at home that my mother keeps with infinite best wishes, Looks like Morgan, best wishes, I mean it.

It sounds ridiculous and extremely vain and presumptuous of me, but I'm at a stage now where, ironically, I've reached a stage where if in the old days I had this level of recognition, I'd be starting to sign autographs all the time. , but nobody wants to. There are no autographs anymore, everyone wants a selfie, so when I finally got there, yes, actually all the weed had gone out of style, now it's selfie time. You're very, you're very honest about it. A lot of people don't, I don't think. I think 99 of my guests would have nothing to say.

I wanted to be famous, and by the way, most of them lie, yeah right, so I like to think that whether you love me or hate me, I have a kind of brutal honesty. what I set out to achieve what I've achieved what I've failed at I don't try to sugarcoat things or try to pretend I'm something I'm not you know you don't have to like me respect the fact I think I say what I think I give honest opinions about things that They are not always opinions that people agree with but I want them to be I don't necessarily want people to agree with me I want to stimulate debate and hopefully arrive at some kind of truth, which is the most important thing in a world where the truth is so hard to find.

I wanted to be famous too and only in hindsight did I realize that I definitely wanted to be famous, no. for all the wrong reasons, but I think the reason I wanted to be famous is because I was the antithesis, I was the opposite of what I was like sometimes when I was younger, when you're a kid trying to fit in on the playground, the only one black boy at an all-white school, people called me the n-word, I relaxed my hair to try to be white like my friends were, and I think I thought fame was acceptance on a grand scale, so I thought admiration, so I thought That's what I wanted when I read about your attendance at that comprehensive school and you were also subjected to pretty harsh treatment.

Yes, well, my full name is Piers Stefan Pugh Morgan. He is a double barrel surname. Imagine having that name when you go to a local competition to know it from day one. I had the local skinhead who had a mohawk and I think he punched me in the face and that went on for quite a while but people kept doing that sort of thing until my brother Jeremy, now a colonel in the British Army, joined the school and he was like old Mike Tyson, you know, everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.

Everyone had a plan on me until my brother joined in and punched him in the face, then I realized that sometimes falling isn't a bad thing. that when you're subjected to bullies there's really only one language that most of them understand. I feel the same way I felt about the playground at the time and what I feel about Vladimir Putin now, what's happening in Ukraine, it's the same principle when someone harasses you. show them fear and weakness or confront them did you like school even though you both were? Yes I loved it. I went to a preparatory school until I was 13 years old.

So I had a lot of privileges in high school. You know, I played sports. every day excellent academics etc, then I went to the local comprehensive school, which was an excellent school, very successful, but suddenly you were doing sport once a week and I realized the huge gulf between the facilities and the resources in a comprehensive school compared to paying fees in high school and how that seemed so unfair to me, but I also found that people had resentment in both environments, you had the snobs in high school and the yobs in comprehensive school , most people were fine on both. but you have those two types of people who would have resentments in the case of snobs, looking down on people in the case of yobs, hating people who had more privileges than them, I think I came out of that environment, both environments with a fairly healthy attitude. or you have a chip on both shoulders we don't have any chips at all i think my ability to be exactly the same whether i'm sitting with nelson mandela and the queen or with my old village mates comes entirely from that dual upbringing i had where I saw great privilege and no privilege and had to find a way to thrive in both environments.

I think it would be good for me actually if I eliminated that comprehensive school experience, especially that before your brother came along and saved you from bullying per se. um, what would happen if I eliminated that experience? What would you eliminate from adult pierce

morgan

? um, I think resilience and mental strength are two things that I'm really excited about. I think this generation in particular has lost the ability to look at mental strength and resilience. and triumphing over adversity and being tough in tough times like badges of honor, they've almost become badges of shame where people feel it's wrong to have a stiff upper lip to be determined to be resilient to be tough under pressure and I looked yeah, I was looking. golf, Tiger Woods' teachers, look at Tiger Woods, the story, I mean, incredible, 21 is the greatest golfer who ever lived, he destroyed everyone, he has everything, he wins 14 majors and then he has one of the biggest falls in the history of sports. and it all involves, you know, chaos in Las Vegas, etc., and his world falls apart, then he gets horrible injuries, he becomes number 1,100 in the world, he's done, there's a whole mix of clips of people saying that he is finished, that he is finished, that he will never win again, whatever that may be. and there's also a video of him watching that combination right after winning the 2019 Masters, something no one said he could do again and again.

He now he was in a horrible car accident, you know, a year ago and yet here he is competing in the Masters that he did. 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 his mentality and I look at a lot of other sports stars right now who think it's okay to quit to give up to walk away to complain all the time to complain about their lot in life and I think how we have come to this, how even in top level sport quitting smoking has now become something to celebrate, it is now a controversial topic and the People say you're making fun of mental health. when you do this, but I don't believe it.

I think we treat the whole mental health debate in the wrong way. I think we should separate mental health from mental illness. I don't think mental health is a topic that should even be discussed, especially by all of us. you have mental health, but if you have a mental illness you need help, you need treatment right now, it seems to me that people see normal life things as some form of mental illness and anxiety is exploding, people say they are mentally ill , the incidence of that is exploding, how can that be happening when we only talk 24/7?

I think we are doing it incorrectly. I think what we are losing in this debate is a celebration of resilience and mental strength, I really do. that and I think schools should have more people there teaching kids how to be tougher about how to deal with normal things in life and I'm not talking about people who have clinical depression or suicidal tendencies orany of those things that are serious. mental illness, I'm talking about people who think that normal things are happening in my life, that we all have to go through pain when you lose a loved one, problems at work, problems with relationships, whatever they are, you have to learn to be more resilient with these things because that's life life is rocky balboa said it's not a no it's a better roses life is hard you know and it's not about how many times it's rock he told his son and the famous scene in the sixth of the franchise when they have that scene in the street with the spoiled sun complaining about everything and Rocky finally turns to him and says look, it's not about how many times you can hit, but how many times you can getting hit, getting knocked down and getting up and moving on, that's what life is all about and I don't think we spend enough time helping people to be mentally strong and resilient, we spend too much time encouraging a kind of wallowing in the self-pity and weakness, and I'm afraid it's not working. obviously it doesn't work.

I remember when you did an interview with a famous world leader. I think he was a terrorist and you told him about his daughter. What if your daughter had dated a Jew? Yes, then, president in the judge of Iran. If then. I will use that same technique if one of her children comes to you and expresses some type of symptom which could be a lack of mental resilience or it could be but he does it, yes he does it and how does he know? Although there is a difference, well, not you, I talk to them, yes, and I talk, I try and with all my children, they are all very different, but they have all come to me at certain stages with problems that they want help with and I always do. tried. and deepen them perspective how great 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 things that went wrong in your life you learn that in reality you either give up or keep hitting , as I always tell them, keep punching, just keep punching, everything will be fine and invariably it is fine, so over time they start to realize that I'm right, actually keep going, don't give up.

Is it if it's a work problem if it's an exam problem if it's a relationship problem whatever I have these conversations all the time about my kids you know they're like the people I spend most of my time talking to and I try and you know and everyone needs different advice and different help in different ways, but what I try to do is have perspective all the time and from my own experience, it's like I've been there. I have been in this position. It feels like the worst thing in the world you know you lose a girlfriend you love you lose a job you love yourself you know you crash a car you lose a family member you love whatever it is there are all kinds of things that will come and make you sick.

Tested especially as you get older, you lose your first friend, who dies when you are young. I remember losing one of my closest friends before he was 30 years old. Devastating, absolutely devastating, but when it happens over and over again with the people you care about, you realize that's the way it is. life life is what it is you have a life and people die and people you love die and people you care about die and you have to learn to ride that wave of pain and it's not a mental illness, it's not anxiety, actually It's just something we all have to deal with, but I think a lot of young people today feel abnormally anxious about these things like they did about the pandemic or the war in Ukraine.

An interesting conversation I had with Dr. Phil here in the United States, actually, about this. He said that when he was young he gave the analogy when he was young if someone was eaten by an alligator on a golf course in Florida. It's very unlikely that anyone knew that outside of the immediate area, you know, there were very few, like one or two main televisions. news bulletins a day there were very few national newspapers, mostly state or county newspapers, so you could find out in the local paper, but certainly no one outside of Florida would probably ever know that the difference now is that young people You will see the video of the person being eaten by the crocodile 20 minutes after it happened.

It is very likely that someone recorded it on a camera on their phone, so they are exposed all the time to a sensory overload of pretty grim things. . Ukraine is very good. example of the first time we've really had a war of this type where we all see it in real time on social media, we see all the videos, we see the horror on real display first hand and that has to have an effect on your senses it has to increase your anxiety levels I understand all that um you know my grandmother was 19 years old in World War II when it started 25 when it ended she didn't see all these things that you just didn't understand exposed to it but if she had been , probably would have had a devastating effect on her, so I think I sympathize with this generation.

I think in many ways they are a great generation. They are better informed than any previous generation. that these networks like instagram facebook twitter and so on have certainly given people an incredible connection with each other, but they also have this terrible fomo that has been created that I see for the first time with my kids in their summer and all that. Their peers are somewhere else, all they see is all the fun happening on Instagram and that makes them a little anxious. I never had that feeling of not knowing what my friends in the next town were doing, so things have changed.

Technology has changed. Good in one sense can be bad in others and we have to find a way to help young people, but ultimately I come back to I don't want to be unfriendly, I certainly want to help, but I think "We are doing it the wrong way. I think we are cheering or gloating We're celebrating self-pity We're celebrating victimhood in a way that now everyone is like you see things on Twitter like you know I just failed my driving test for the fourth time, but I'm so proud of myself. myself for the journey I've been on, what are you talking about?

Which means you're proud of yourself, you just failed, you're driving desperately, I thought, "let's be proud of yourself," I get it. I'm still struggling to address is having sat here with even I know you know Roman Kemp, yeah, and his love, having sat here with Roman Kemp and listening to this because of what he went through with his friend who he was on his radio station with. him, I'm very aware of that, yeah, he committed suicide out of nowhere, yeah, and he never talked to anyone, and Roman said if I had lined up 20 of my friends and said which one is suicidal, he would have been named last, yeah , in my opinion, so when I reflect on that and I look at male suicides in particular and a lot of what mental health organizations say that the causes of that one of them is that men just don't talk about how they are. "You're feeling and then that results in alcoholism and these are, but I talk about it, yeah, and I encourage people, so this is what I say, so when someone says the use of the word wallow, it sounds very similar, It depends on what you say." You are gloating if they are gloating but you know when you use those words yes you know because you are an intelligent man and you write you know that people will misinterpret the use of the word and there is harm in them, that's them I don't quite understand what I mean. with this, okay, it's a bit like the obesity debate, we are now at the ridiculous stage of this debate, we can't call people fat, you can't do it, it's offensive, so now we have a situation where You see a 310-pound model on the cover of Cosmopolitan who's five-foot-two, dangerously morbidly obese, but the cover, the image, and the six-page interview inside never mentions celebrating her positive body image, nothing. positive about morbid obesity, she is going to die.

If she's allowed to go ahead like this, I'm not afraid to say that and there's a society that doesn't go there and pretend that all of this is perfectly acceptable, it's doing that woman a disservice, so when you say well, no can. uses the word wallow, but I would say Stephen, I didn't say that because you're implying it, yes, yes, because I would say that a lot of people wallow, I see them, what's the difference between wallowing and going to a friend? and saying "I'm really feeling" or even tweeting it "I feel like there's something wrong with me" what's the difference between wallowing?

Well, there's a line that I don't know, I don't know exactly what the line is, but I do know when friends or family members come to me, or they come with something that I think, yes, they have a valid reason to feel that way or Sometimes you just have to get over it and then they laugh and have a drink and get over it. I think, by the way, you can't say that anymore. There will be people watching this. Your younger audience will be like, "Oh my God, did you just tell people to get over it?

These are about people with mental illness, right?" No, no, I'm not very careful to listen to what I say. I distinguish between people who I think have mental illnesses and people who I think are genuinely gloating because society has decided it wants to celebrate people who have something. It's wrong with them more than it now celebrates people who are successful and tough achievers and talk about having guts and a stiff upper lip and all these things that turn into sticks to hit people with. I used it against me one day when you talked about a rigid superior. lip why shouldn't i? why shouldn't i?

I have a stiff upper lip. I've been through a lot of bad things in my life and I've decided that's the way I handle it. You may not like it and you may like it. deal with it by going woe is me and one of my favorite poems is a poem by uh d.h lawrence 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 freeze to

death

in a bow of a tree before I feel self-pity or something It's a brilliant poem so that's it, it's only about four lines and I get that's the point in the jungle in the animal world self-pity doesn't exist wallowing in your own pain doesn't exist, you have to move on, you know, one of my favorite conversations with sir roger bannister, who sadly died, but he was the first man to break the four minute mile and i asked him.

He used to live in the square, I live in London and he came to one of the 200 years of the square and I spoke to him and said do you know when you won? This incredibly killed, collapsed on the line. I asked him if you had any kind of motivational quote that drives you and he got pretty funny. He said I have one. It was an anonymous proverb from the African jungle and it was that when a lion wakes up in the morning he knows one thing he has to do. 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 will be killed, so whatever you are in the African bush, a one thing is certain. 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 the listeners of this podcast to learn from this interview if you take one thing away, run, move.

Positive, don't let the normal things in life get you down because if they do, they will take over your life and you will become one of those miserable, self-obsessed people in the wrong way, where all you think about is you and your problems and your woes it's like there are a lot of people worse off than you when I see some of the nonsense I'm seeing right now on social media from people feeling sorry for themselves when they see what's happening in Ukraine, it actually makes me vomit, it's like seeing what's happening to the people of Ukraine and getting a perspective on your life and I'm sorry if that sounds difficult, but I'm not sorry, I actually understand you, I completely understand the point about mental resilience and I think.

There's a lot of what you said that I really agree with, especially about a younger generation. I've said it on this podcast many times. I'm afraid of over-labeling things that might just be moodiness or whatever with something else that's much more medically concerning and when I asked that question then you said it depends on what it is, yeah, in terms of If a friend comes to you with a mental health disorder, the problem is that you will know that these things are very subjective, so when? someone is coming like people can really be suicidal it really is suicide its not okay to fake it or seek attention for losing a cryptocurrency investment.

I read an article about that the other day cryptocurrency investing falls and commits suicide, so the risk I see is being the judge of whether someone's feelings are worthy of the emotion, that's the risk, it's like Did you know, I think there is because there are millions of people prepared to do what you are talking about. I am a very rare voice on the public platform. arena that is prepared to give a slightly different perspective on this topic and to me there is room for both, you know you don't need more people providing 24/7 coverage for mental health like aproblem, as it is assumed that We all have a slight mental illness.

I just don't believe it. Read. I read a report last year that said 33 million people in Britain have mental illness. No, but no, it's bullshit, bullshit, and when a society pretends that's the case because a lot of people identify as mentally ill when in reality they just have anxiety about tests or relationships or whatever when they do it we do, it means that the people who really need help aren't getting it, it means they're slipping through the cracks in my opinion and that's the problem with this um and you know it's not about being insensitive or callous.

I think my kids would tell you that sometimes I spent hours and hours talking about my problems with them, but I always come back and see that life is hard and you have to do it. keep hitting, that's my mantra because I've applied this to myself and my family they've had a lot to deal with and they've kept hitting because what really is the alternative? The alternatives you give up and that for me is not an option. It's not an option that would bring me any pleasure. I couldn't look at myself in the mirror. I had given up all along.

Why would I bring that up? It's a pleasure to all, 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 flavor huel and they recently released the coffee caramel flavor ice cream from your um ready to drink heels and me. I got hooked over the past few weeks. I've been on a really interesting journey with Huel, which I described and talked about a bit in this podcast. I started with the ready-to-drink berry and then moved on. to salted caramel with protein because it's 100 calories and gives you all the essential vitamins and minerals, but it also gives you the 20 odd grams of protein you need and now I'm balanced between the two.

I mainly drink the ready-to-drink banana flavor. I really like the iced coffee caramel flavor of the ready-to-drink heels and am now drinking it in addition to the protein. Be sure to try the new ready-to-drink flavors. The caramel flavor is amazing. The new banana flavor too. It's amazing and obviously like I said the Iced Coffee Caramel flavor has been a real hit here so check it out and let me know what you think on social media. I see all your tags, Instagram posts, and tweets about you. Back to podcast one of The Things I Love About You, well I was really drawn to your story as I was reading the beginnings of your professional career, it was clearly for some reason that I couldn't figure out just from reading, you came up with it pretty quickly.

Kelvin gave you a shot yes in the sun rupert murdoch gave you a chance to watch the world news when you were 28 made you editor of the largest newspaper in the western hemisphere if I'm not right 28 years old so when I was reading that I thought I had to ask him why, what's wrong with you? Well, I think I remember Alex Ferguson saying I know you're a big fan of my sympathies in this different time. I remember him saying that he loved youth because there was the audacity of youth, I think I was quite brave when I was 20, you certainly know that before you take responsibility, before you get married, you have children, etc., you have other people of the That you are responsible, there is a boldness that comes with youth and I think it was certainly instilled by the confidence that came from my family.

Very strong women, particularly in my family. My mother. My grandmother. Tremendously strong people who overcome many adversities. you're mad but they never did and that just wasn't allowed, it was always like just move on, dust yourself off, move on and to be honest I like that, I thrived under that mantra and I remember Kelvin McKenzie was a mercurial genius in In many ways, brutal but brilliant, you know, hilarious and barbaric, I mean, it's like everything, but the sun had an incredible power and voice when he was in charge and he said the most annoying thing about me was that I could give him the wildest way. bollocks where literally the veins in his neck would start to explode and within an hour I would return to his office jumping with excitement because I had a scoop for him and I was not at all fazed by the bollocks that had motivated me to go and prove it.

He makes a mistake and gets 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 speak up. You can not do it. It's intimidation. We are all victims of bullying. you can't joke anymore it can't be funny anymore all the joy has been sucked out of life by this woke brigade of, in my opinion, horrible people who just think life should be fun without jokes uh it's all bullying every criticism is bullying everything it is terrible people it's horrible you can't have fun you can't do anything I don't think so that's not how most people are most people aren't like that they don't actually believe the rubbish they're saying it's not like that, it's not like that as someone wants to lead their lives, we know from the pandemic what it's like when our freedom, our basic freedom is taken away, why would we come out of a pandemic, would we want to live a joyless existence, how do we solve it?

This is because I agree with you. I think common sense has to come into play. I think the problem with the culture of the Awakening Council, as I said, is that if you go and study, I read a whole book about this last year, it was a huge bestseller. because people got it right, so I think you know where I'm coming from, we're probably not that far apart politically from each other, I guess from what I know about you, but I want to study the origin of the word woke and what it means. By that definition, I am awake.

I believe in promoting campaigns against racial and social injustice. I've done it my entire career as a newspaper editor and as a television host. You know, what I've done doesn't cut ice. although with the modern word brigade because they have stolen the wokeness and now they have used it as a new form of fascism in which they want to dictate to people how they should live their lives what they think is funny what movies are acceptable what are not acceptable what television shows that they can enjoy you know what haircuts they can have that aren't inappropriate or culturally inappropriate you can't celebrate any other culture anymore everything is inappropriate every joke is inappropriate every comedian has to be canceled people can't host the oscars if they told an inappropriate joke 10 years before, and still, Roman Polanski was given an Oscar after raping a girl.

I mean, the kind of warped morality of it all is absolutely extraordinary to me, but at the heart of it, a woman approached me in Kensington a few years ago. 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 take any of that stuff. I wanted to laugh in the streets, she said, the problem with these. Wookies is that they want to take all the joy out of life and I thought what a brilliant way to describe it and they have literally become the same fascists that they profess to hate the most and we have to counter it and that's why my ambition with my new The Show for example, It's canceling cancer culture to get back to what a democracy should be, what society should be when it's supposedly democratic, where you and I can have a lively debate about something and agree to disagree and go have a beer. or maybe come to points of consensus on what used to happen I have had fierce arguments with my friends and family my whole life the idea that I would disown them like you see happening all the time now with people fighting with friends and family because they are so blindly self-righteous about their own opinion that they can't tolerate another opinion the idea that we have college campuses where only a certain type of voice is tolerated in a university a place where you're supposed to learn all kinds of disparate points of view listen to all different voices and make your own decision now not unless they are woke speakers no one else can do it if you are conservative which by the way there are many millions of people in this country in America and Australia if you are conservative you are the Enemy must be crushed and destroyed and without platforms really, how do we get there?

How could any student develop or evolve her mind in an environment that cancels anyone for deviating from a woke agenda? It's crazy, you know? And when I look at what is happening with the transgender debate I support the rights of transgender people to justice and equality, I have always done so publicly in television columns on Twitter. I have been very clear: I want transgender people to have equality and justice to the point where trans activism leads to an erosion of women's rights. As we are seeing everywhere, especially in the world of sports, if someone really wants to sit here and tell me that what is happening in women's sports with transgender athletes is fair or equitable, I would love to hear it because we all know it is unfair. and what is in the spotlight is that many trans people do not want to get involved in this debate and just want to be able to get on with their lives and try to have a fair life. and equality, they are being mocked and ridiculed because what is happening with transportation is very ridiculous and that is why I tell people, yes, you can tell me that you are intolerant and transphobic, but I am not, in reality I am.

Just the voice of common sense when you see even JK Rowling canceled because she believes in the biology of sex, it's crazy. Sex isn't something you can fake as a gender, it could be anything you make up in the moment. It's not you, you've seen how this becomes more and more, let's say the world has more and more work. I think the world has moved on from being woke, okay? with the original. I think most people in the '60s, '70s and '80s wanted to see it. better racial equality and social equality for most people, but that's the original definition of woke, modern woke has nothing to do with it, modern woke is a form of fascism, okay then you'll play by our rules or they will destroy you, that's the difference for me, so the world has more of this modern wokism, yeah right, and I've seen it on social media, the way the algorithms work, they show you more of the same, they show you more of the same, you they keep reinforcing and then because you build an audience of the same people, they clap more when you say a certain thing, yeah, kind of reinforcement, you appreciate your chorus, yeah, you know, you know, geologies, you go for about two thousand years, we live in tribes, yeah , that's written in your book, yes, of course. and I told him the story about how you never used to leave your tribe so that everyone in the tribe looked the same, the same attitudes, ate the same food, drank the same drink, the same sense of humor because you never left this group of people and then of the people.

They began to leave their tribes and meet other tribes that dressed differently, thought differently, laughed at different things, maybe spoke differently and both tribes at that time decided that the only answer to this was to kill each other. to others, well, that's where we've come back. You're an optimist, not really, so this is what I wanted to say. Your antidote to this new work is to lead and create a counternarrative, which is what you are doing with your new exhibition piece. You haven't focused what you did. with your book too, are you deeply optimistic that it will win?

Let me ask you a question, so I'm described as very controversial, right, I've been called all kinds of names, people say what I say, the things I say. They are scandalous when you read my book, how many times did you stop and think that is scandalous? No, I don't really disagree with anything, so that's my point. I don't think I'm the controversial one, so I guess I'm coming to 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 left-wing. Now I don't do it anymore because the Because a lot of them are crazy, yeah, a lot of it is absolutely crazy. I also don't really identify with being on the right because they're crazy. I agree. I realize you go crazy on both sides and us. I'm moving towards the extremes but I will get canceled from both sides, yes, because I don't wear the football uniform of either. I am the same, yes, so I want to bring back a society more related to consensus, where points of consensus are reached. agreement through debate and don't try to shame or cancel each other out by having different opinions because that's the core of it, you know they call themselves liberals, they're not liberals, liberalism is not about the inability to tolerate other opinions, is the On the contrary, you are supposed to tolerate and respect other opinions and agree to disagree.

We have lost this in society because a small group of people, but very loud and very angry about everything all the time, are pushing an agenda that if we lower that. way, we will be the end of a democratic society as we know it, so I see myself humbly trying to defend democracy genuinely and humility is not something I findnatural, but to genuinely try to defend what democracy really is and try to educate. these wokies about what true liberalism is, what democracy really means, what freedom of speech means, freedom of speech is not about being in an echo chamber, everyone agreeing with each other, like Churchill said, freedom Expression is about listening to points of view that you simply don't agree with, but allowing people to have different points of view, you know it's funny.

I traveled the world when I ran my marketing business before I quit and I used to have a slide on my presentation deck that had your face on it and you know who else? The face was in the same slideshow. I went all over the world with this presentation with Apple Amazon. It had Pierce Morgan, Katie Hopkins, Kanye West and Donald Trump. I used to tell people that this is a very important thing to learn from these four people, because whether you like them or not in marketing, the least profitable result is indifference when you don't get along in any 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. you, but they are always listening, yes, and sometimes you know that in the topics covered or in this topic they will be behind you and then they will be against you, but do you strategically realize the art of being the center of the conversation? yes and and what are the principles if it is a brand trying to be relevant or the center of attention or if it is a person in their personal brand for you what are the principles for one to replicate what you have done with that confidence in self-confidence Yes, I think the only thing I have is a lot of confidence in myself.

I am firm. I remember a friend of mine. Kevin Peterson, the cricketer, his great mantra with himself when he played cricket for England. Facing, he was one of the few players in history to take down Shane Warm at his peak in the 2005 Ashes series because he backed himself, but it's crushing, it's risky, we've seen it in his cause, it's risky, but like Wayne Gretzky, the best ice hockey player in history. the story brilliantly said you will fail one hundred percent of the shots you don't take you have to take risks in life you have to learn from

failure

mars bakers used to celebrate chocolate bars that didn't work more than They made chocolate bars that worked.

They worked under the assumption that most of their bars would work. They tested and tested and tested and they knew what they were doing, so most of their new bars would work, but if they occasionally had a

failure

out of the blue, they were stunned. Everyone would celebrate it because they believe that they learn more from failure than from endless success and I agree that I have learned more from failures than from success. Success is easy when you are successful. Everyone should have a piece of the pie. I've had great success and I've had wonderful success, you know, catastrophic moments in doing and when you start doing, the old cliché you find out who your friends are, it's completely true, you find out who your friends are, you find out who really cares . about you, who is prepared to defend you, you know, I remember after my dramatic exit from Good Morning Britain, sharon osbourne tweeted uh, that I was entitled to my opinion, she knew that in doing so there could be massive repercussions for her given how incendiary which was the whole debate.

Did she scandalously cost him a job? She was described as a racist sympathizer on her show The Talk, but when she asked them to describe the racist things she had said, they couldn't because guess what I didn't say? racist, nothing I thought about the mega market was driven by anything to do with her race or skin color, why would it be that I just thought it was a fake work that defamed the royal family? I am entitled to that opinion, you may not agree with it. I think most people who watched the interview probably ended up agreeing with me, it doesn't really matter if 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 that I was entitled to an opinion, not even she agreed with my opinion, just that she was entitled to one who at that moment told me how ridiculous this culture has become and I am delighted that sharon is showing up again on talk tv in the uk. on the show after mine on a show called the talk, we're not canceling her because she should never have been canceled in the first place and when people say counseling doesn't exist, look what happened to Sharon, look at the effect that it got.

Devastating for her and her family she couldn't get a job in America where she had worked for 40 years so it's happening and I want to cancel that culture I think it's wrong so that led to the first point there . it was the confidence in backing yourself up, yeah, I think the other thing is having a little bit of bravery, a little bit of chutzpah, you have to have the ability to know how to stir things up and upset people. I like to bother everyone. The right people who are so permanently offended by everything, it's easy to break up, do I enjoy it?

Yes, sometimes I love to just put in a tweeter. I mean, the vegan sausage roll debate was one of the funniest things I've ever had. I had the flu while on vacation in Italy. I was in bed sweating with a very high fever and I saw Greg saying the wait was over, the vegan sausage is finally here, so what are you talking about? Who's been waiting for a vegan sausage roll apart from anything else like beer with the French? where it is illegal to market vegetarian or vegan products using meat language, a sausage roll is meat, if vegans want to eat their porridge, that's fine, go and lead a sad existence eating your lentils, don't accept my language, don't pretend that your rolls sausage are real.

Sausage rolls aren't, they're tasteless and have more calories than McDonald's cheeseburgers, so what I'm saying is: do I care? Look, I don't care about it as much as Ukraine, but at the time it really bothered me. We were all supposed to have been waiting for a vegan sausage roll and it also bothered me that you were seeing stories of vegans walking into state restaurants and playing slaughtered cow music. It's like shut up and walk away. I do not come. Walk into your porridge restaurant and shout about what you do to the bee community in California when you eat almonds and almond milk.

Billions of bees are exterminated each year in a six-week sacrifice in California so vegans can eat almonds and avocados, but you? I care about vegan sausage rolls. I actually care about the hypocrisy surrounding the debate, so I made a tweet anyway saying this is ridiculous and everyone went crazy. I wasn't allowed to think this was ridiculous. I had to accept that the vegan sausage rolls. They're fantastic, everyone goes crazy, Greg loves it because they sell, I think their products are worth a billion dollars more that year, in fact the CEO thanked me personally at the end of the year's results, so they cleaned up, so In fact, I'm thinking about going into a business where all I do is accept big checks from companies to attack their products and probably make a fortune, but all to show me that everyone was allowed to love vegan sausage rolls , but if you deviated from that and said you hated them, they had to be destroyed this was not acceptable the task force decided that vegan sausage rolls were untouchable you had to support them you had to think they were cool this was brilliant even though they are bad for you literally worse than a McDonald's cheeseburger uh in terms of salt and calorie intake and even though it was all based on this absolute hypocrisy around vegan food that they are somehow leaving out the little animals in peace when they exterminate the little ones, the bees and I'm sorry for the bees, no one I ever heard vegans talk about bees here it's always the big animals that worry about the cows, not the little ones, I'm a little one, I'm the Robin Hood of this debate, I look after the little ones, against the sheriffs of Nottingham, of course, well, I guess. about that, okay, you play, you play, I know, from what you have said here, you know that it is part of this, it is a game and it is very profitable, it is all fun to some extent, but there is also a serious point behind this. and in reality the vegan food business is a hugely flourishing business and that's fine, people want to eat, that's fine, but I agree with the French that you really shouldn't be allowed to pretend that what you are doing is related to meat because it is Not so, there is a genuine point there that I firmly believe that the French have made it illegal.

You can't use meat language to sell vegan products. I think we should follow the same path. You have your world and we will have ours. I know your career has been pretty full of these moments where you're the center, the orbit of sort of debate and controversy, controversy when you go for a period and people aren't tweeting about your abuse and stuff and not starting out, Do you feel a little like you made a mistake? I remember Donald Trump telling me that when he came to the White House he put four televisions in his room. I used to wake up at five in the morning because he doesn't sleep and he would watch TV and if he didn't like what was on the screen or if it wasn't about him he would just take out his phone and tweet something and the next thing they would do everything changes in real time breaking news President Trump says blah blah blah and I can relate to that it's like I wake up in the morning and it's 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 from it, I get a lot of notoriety and fame, people either love me or hate me, but you know, that's part of being in the opinion business. you don't want to be loved and hated so you don't express opinions about anything and that way to me madness lies you know i would rather be it's like old churchill again uh you know he said if you have enemies it means that at some point in your life you stood up for something that you believe is good at, that's good when you've had what you called catastrophic events in your life that you know and well, other people see them as catastrophic.

I've never really seen it like that, like when I was fired from the mirror for example, yes, after 10 years, other people were much more agitated by it and thought it was much more characteristic than me, good morning Britain, and this It was the other thing. About your story, which I found, I really wanted to ask you about if you have these ups and downs and these ups and downs and your Twitter bio, I think that's probably a pretty appropriate summary of maybe your views on this. which is, I can't remember exactly, but one day in the cabin, one day, you are the one from the war next to the duster, yes, and then I read that you know that after the mirror situation you slept a lot, yes, and then, and then.

It also seems like after every shot or push you get kicked out, whatever it is, you get angry, there is no more Churchill, who I love, as you may have reunited Churchill, who is now being vilified by the white brigade , of course, because he saved the world from Nazi Germany. Of course it has to be destroyed, but Churchill, you know, he also said that the best definition of success is to go from failure to failure without a perceptible loss of enthusiasm. Now I think I've had a lot of success and occasional failures, but I don't see any of the downsides the same way other people see my career.

I am very relaxed about my level of success and failure. I think everything is greased. I've usually gone somewhere under explosive circumstances and it's invariably lit by something better, so I'm very optimistic about it. My glasses are always full. I believe that a chapter that ends is another chapter about to begin. You just have to make sure you get something good. If I talked to your wife, I mean, even. Your kids and I said how Pierce's emotional state changes after he gets expelled in one of these moments of catastrophic failure, they would say what I say, he doesn't change at all, barely, barely, not at all, no, I don't.

Probably not, if anything I'm more relaxed, that's all because when you're in one of these boilerplate jobs editing a daily newspaper or doing a morning television show, you know and you've got your adrenaline pumping and you're on caffeine and stuff, it makes you a little nervous to be around when you're not doing that, you're more relaxed, I'm probably calmer, a little more relaxed, and then that gets a little boring and I want to get back in the game again because in that gap between a job and the Next you've had a lot of those gaps, what's going on in your life and why not, because it must be very easy for you to rush into doing something else. the next day, yes, but the gap between your departure, good morning Britain, I always advise people when they lose an important job, take your time,just go and clear your mind, they will offer you many things, but don't react, let the dust settle. settle, you know, I left, good morning Britain, it was a massive global firestorm, uh, and I just took my time, I had a lot of people offering me things every day, all kinds of jobs from all over the world. world could have taken any of them, uh, but actually, I thought I was going to take my time, I just chilled, watched some football, watched some cricket, saw some friends, uh, get fit, You know, unfortunately, then they covered me up and that was the end of boot camp for a few months, but the beginning is clearing your mind.

Get these moments a few times in your life where you have a chance to reset, recalibrate, clear your head, and then decide what you really want to do next, because three or four months later it won't be the same as how you feel. At the moment the tendencies of most people when they leave an important job in dramatic circumstances, I have to do the same somewhere else, prove my point, I don't feel like I have to prove anything to anyone. You know, I was a talent show judge. at six years old I loved the number one show on British and American television for six great years, then I left it.

I just couldn't think of anything else to say about pigs who play the piano. It's time to keep going forward. You know, I did Larry King's job on CNN. After him, for almost four years, I did 1,200 primetime shows on CNN around the world, people call it a failure, it's like 1,200 more than any other British person I've ever seen do a talk show. on prime time in America, so it's All Relative, isn't it about what your perception of failure is? I had a great time at CNN and actually wanted to come home. Then I did Breakfast TV, which I never thought I'd want to do or even enjoy.

I loved it and we absolutely crushed it, we took the ratings from 14 to 36 and now they're back to 18. So people could do the math, you know, I think it was a huge success and yeah, I still know some people. Bad for you, right? I said no, not really, no, it was a brilliant success. Good morning, Great Britain. We became the number one breakfast show in the country on my last day. I left as a matter of principle and the principle was that I have the right. In my opinion, you may not like it. I'm entitled to my opinion and in every case where I've had some kind of career ending moment where the bosses have really lost the bottle on me, so I need to now be back to my first big boss in the media, Rupert Murdoch, who has balls of steel and is not going to take a phone call from Meghan Markle demanding my head on a plane had a few words to say about one of my sponsors on this podcast, since we all know that energy independence and living a A little greener has never been more important for a better future, it's a journey I've been on for the last few years that I've shared with you sporadically since I sold my range instead of sport and bought an electric bike and there are a lot of people listening this podcast and looking to make that sustainable change in the things that run your daily life, whether it's your house, your car, your vehicles, whatever, so when a good friend of mine at a company called my Energy named Jordan told me that was interested in sponsoring this podcast, I jumped at the chance, so for those of you. that don't know my energy is a UK renewable energy brand whose mission is to increase the use of green energy by helping people like you and me save time and money when it comes to making sustainable changes to our lives, so If this resonates with you and you are the type of person who has been looking or thinking about embarking on your own sustainability journey.

I highly recommend checking them out at meghan myenergy.com. I'm not going to go into that, personally I'm not that interested. but what it was I didn't want to ask you because I saw when you talked about Oxford, you were talking about Jeremy Clarkson getting into a fist fight with him, yeah, going to the pub making up afterwards, and there you said I like getting into a fight with someone in the make-up again, Yes, what would it take for you and Meghan Markle to reconcile? She could do it. She did an interview like this with me.

Be very interesting. You know, it's like Meghan Markle for me has lost all sense of reality. In life she needs to sit down with someone like me, not with Oprah Winfrey, an interview that allows you to feed your victimhood, she needs someone to give her perspective. I talk to him about perspective and I say, you know you're aware of that when you preach to us about climate change. and the environment and the carbon footprint of Elton John's private plane don't sit too well, do you know that when you tweet like they did on the day of his half a million dollar baby shower in New York with all of his famous friends when do you tweet? from your twitter account about poverty doesn't feel very good.

Are you aware that when you preach about equality from your 11 million mansion in California it doesn't feel very good? Are you aware that when you tear our beloved prince from the bosom of his family? and taking him to America and waking him up into submission, doesn't sit very well with the British people, do you know that when you make very serious accusations of racism and callous disregard for suicidal thoughts, you actually have to present some evidence to support it? Otherwise, everyone in the palace and royal family is defamed 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 that Oprah didn't ask you. Oprah went. That? That? I just

repeat

edly believed everything she said. We now know that at least 17 statements Meghan Markle made in that interview were false. So I'm still supposed to believe him? Is it a job-ending moment if I don't believe him? I think so. she's a piece of work, I think I was one of the many people he used on his way down the slippery ladder, that's fine, I don't care, he met her once, but the way he treated me on a very small level didn't is different. the way she disowned her father, the guy who raised her alone for six seven years, you know he was disowned, he lived 70 miles away, she never sees him, she ever met his son-in-law, I miss crazy things, do you?

Right, she had one? member of your entire family at the wedding where your family should have been on both sides was oprah winfrey and george clooney do me a favor so I see it clearly people still want to believe you that's okay people love meghan markle , think what 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. I'm getting as bored as you are, to be honest with you, yeah, so I don't do it. I want to be defined by Meghan Markle even though she was personally responsible for her losing a job I loved.

You know she was the one who wrote to the ITV boss on Monday night, which led to me leaving the next day. We are both women and we are both mothers you have to get rid of it do people think that is right? Is it right that a person like meghan markle of the california mansion should leave her as a british television presenter out of a job that she enjoys that viewers enjoy doing it that way I don't think so, is it right that my right to freedom expression was so affected that I had to leave a job if I didn't apologize for not believing someone who said false things?

I don't believe it. I thought the whole thing was ridiculous, just like, months later, the government regulated who ruled in my favor, so I thought the whole thing, frankly, was absurd, but in answer to your original question, let's do an interview. Megan, let me say. All these questions for you and I answer some difficult questions because I wish you no harm. I don't want them to be unhappy, but I hate what they have done to each other to the royal family and the monarchy. I think it's been incredibly damaging. Do you ever worry that, on a real human level, some of the words you say say for Megan or Sam Smith or Good Morning Britain or even around?

I know it's Tessa who was on the cover of the magazine, yes the cover of cosmo covergirl has it ever crossed your mind that words or tweets could actually hurt someone? Do you think it's crossed? Has what she did to me crossed your mind about Meghan Markle? She didn't cost him a job. You know she was saying that she was suicidal again. I don't want to get back to the mental health point, but did you ever think this was going to hurt this person? She said two people. At the palace, when she told them that she had suicidal thoughts, she said that she could not receive treatment because it would be detrimental to the brand.

Yes, I don't think so and no evidence has been presented to support it. Those are extremely inflammatory accusations in my opinion. see weaponizing mental health and suicide to present herself as a victim if Meghan Markle has evidence that two senior members of the royal household refused to allow her to receive help for her suicidal thoughts. I want to know who they were when they said it and they shouldn't. I have those jobs, but now we are a year later and a little later there is no evidence similarly with his claims of racism, one of them we knew immediately was false, it is completely false that his son was prevented from being prince because of his skin color, demonstrably false, factually incorrect and the other claim was that a member of the royal family expressed concern about Archie's skin color, who he was and what they said and what was the context in which they said it because the damage which she calls calling the royal family a bunch of racists.

It's incalculable, as we saw on the recent Caribbean tour with William and Kate, so I don't think it's harsh to want some evidence to back up such inflammatory claims, and when it comes to doing so, I use harsh language, yes. Sometimes I think so, but I don't regret doing it because I think they themselves have been using some pretty despicable language. Have you ever regretted something you've said in terms of sometimes you think oh, I mean, sometimes no, I encourage all my kids? be free thinkers and sometimes they will be all over me, you know, like dad, you went too far, you shouldn't say that and we will have a lively debate about it and sometimes they make me change my mind about some things, give me an example.

I knew I tried to think that it had happened, it has happened, I mean, they'll say my middle son, Stanley, he's an actor and a photographer, he loves your podcast, he's my favorite son, yeah, exactly, it's like, oh, he's in the mine, it's okay, I have everything. my sons are the same and my daughter um but he would say now that's talking about meghan markle yeah just don't bother no and he's right there comes a point what's the point the problem is they make the news all the time, my job. is talking about the news and obviously I have a personal interest in the brand called debacle because it cost me my job so I still feel like I have some kind of stake in that in that story, but he would certainly say move on to other things you know, just do something else in this interview that's more interesting than Megan Bloody Markle and she's actually right, so that would be an example.

I've had that conversation with him and my other children, but we argue, we have a group about what's going on. My children and I, if people read that or laugh because they criticize my children for all kinds of things, sometimes we agree many times, we disagree and we have very loud arguments, but then we all go out and have fun together and that's how it should be I want my children to be independent minded I want them to challenge me I want to challenge them and sometimes it gets very heated you know as a parent when you lead a crusade like I'm sure you would call it um about free thought and freedom of expression and this kind of thing there is surely some kind of consequence for your children, right?

Because you're on, I don't mean that fame itself creates a consequence for you. They bother us because they're my dad, but I always tell them that you get a lot of benefits too because you're my kids, right? And my kids, all of you, right? We go and have a great time, right? royalty in restaurants, you know, we have a wonderful vacation, we have a lovely place in Beverly Hills, they come to all this because of my fame for a better word and the success, in the midst of the failures, and I say you have to take life in its entirety.

There will be some annoying parts of being my children and there will be some very good benefits of being my children. You know, I got Cristiano Ronaldo when I interviewed him to make a video for my kids naming them right and they said oh. Oh my gosh but you wouldn't understand that if it wasn't who I am so you have a wonderful moment and then you might have trolls like in one case he threatened to kill my oldest son on his Instagram and I took him to the police because why that my children should be exposed to death

threats

from some disgusting troll?

And it is interesting that the process has been going on for more than a year and has not yet reached court. It was a clear and demonstrable death threat specific to my son and me and his mother, my ex-wife, and it's like how can that be allowed?for this to happen? We are still a year and a half later and we still have not taken any action against the perpetrator. I hope there is. go through the process, but it shows you the fragility and weakness of social media, that someone can make a specific death threat and nothing is done for so long, so that's a disadvantage of being my, you know, when in Good morning, Britain blew up all my children.

We were being abused on social media in the most horrible way by a selective crowd of people who normally have the hashtag be kind in their bio while they spewed vile abuse towards my children simply for being my children, they didn't even agree with me on many things. Aside from losing people, when does Pierce Morgan cry? I mean, really the last time I cried was at my grandmother's funeral in 2013. Before that, I remember crying at a movie. I was trying to do it. I think it was a movie that ends. in a horrible way with a young son shot to death, I don't remember what each one was.

I think it was paul tom hanks, maybe paul newman or something like that. I don't remember the movie, but it was in the theater. When I saw it I remembered my children and when they kill the boy in that kind of horrible Denis Montes movie that I made, I actually got emotional and I was surprised to know that I normally don't get emotional about most things because I also think like a relative of the newspaper over 10 years you become pretty immune to shocking things, even if they're real in your world you become immune to them you get used to

dealing

with them you know you've had to cover stories like the dumb street massacre or 911 or diners La death or whatever it is, these things are huge emotional things for the country and for the world and over time you learn to be able to handle that and do your job, so you become quite tough, quite callous on the outside, It doesn't mean that I have to feel things inside, that's what makes me curious because reading what you've been through in your career, the ups and downs, I thought that if I were this man, I would have suffered quite a bit with anxiety, I think.

I don't have anxiety do you ever get anxious no never no really no no no I don't get nervous I don't get anxious I'm pretty confident in myself I think I'm pretty self aware which I think is really important. I am very aware of who I am, what I am, how I operate, I am also aware over time of things that seem terrible in the moment, very rarely can you survive everything except death or you know some. It is a kind of terrible disease that you cannot get rid of. You know, the most frustrated I've probably ever been was I was covered for a long time, last year after I got the delta varium, so I had a week with a really high fever and stuff.

I had six and seven months of long cove with no smell, no taste, endless fatigue, no energy, which for me was the worst, you know, I broke my ankle the summer before and I didn't care too much, it was annoying. I physically couldn't play golf and stuff like that, but I could function as myself, but when you lose energy it's a really interesting thing. I found it really debilitating and in some ways quite depressing, you know, over time, as the months went by, because no doctor could tell you what the cure is and I have great sympathy for the millions of people out there with a form of covert virus for a long time, it is a very brutal virus, even if you have been like I was fully vaccinated, it can do a lot of things to you. of problems, but as I sat there month after month after month with energy not returning and tasteless, I couldn't drink my favorite good wine, I only drank terrible wine because the strong flavors I could actually almost distinguish, so you're ready for your jump thrill really horrible pinot grigio unlike my normal you know chateau la tour was a it was a difficult time stop gloating these are first world problems and I'm gloating but it made me realize that if you're in good health you have a wealth much better than any real physical wealth and really, if you have health, make the most of it.

I have a lot of sympathy for people who have debilitating illnesses, whether mental or physical, so I always try to discuss mental health to put the two aside. I know people who have clinical depression, it's a terrible thing and they need constant help, constant medical attention, treatment, medications, etc. I have great sympathy for people in that sense. position one way when I had long covid, I felt like I guess this kind of mental confusion that comes with it, anyone who's had it will know what I'm talking about, if not you're just wondering what the confusion is. everything, but you have this kind of brain fog that stays in your head and I imagine it's at a much worse level for people with clinical depression.

Now I can understand a little more what that must feel like, but that's not it. the same as feeling anxious about things in normal life, anxiety levels are completely out of control so I don't get anxious about things I don't get nervous about things I get excited I get that kind of adrenaline excitement nervous excitement pierce morgan uncensored excitement So tell me why, how do you find your enthusiasm in doing this after having had such a long career? What is it about this new program that excites you? It's completely new. You are starting from scratch. I had many offers to establish programs.

Networks established around the world. and I thought you know how much I like this idea. I like working for Rupert Murdoch again. He has been a great mentor to me in my life. He is 91 years old. I had dinner with him here in LA a couple nights ago and he just has his brain on 91. It's just amazing and his extraordinary drive to always be thinking about the next thing he just did at spacex and he was so excited about what he's doing elon musk who never looks back, he only looks forward, he is very infectious and completely believes in freedom of expression and that has made him a very polarizing figure, as he has been with me, but he completely believes in that and I find him intoxicating , so I go back to where it started with the person who gave me my first really big job in media, uh, with a global platform, so no one has really tried to do a daily show that airs in the UK, USA.

The US and Australia are on three different continents at the same time and my intuition is that the world is a small place but we have actually arrived at a place now. where because of social media, whether you're in Sydney, London, New York, everyone's having the same arguments, everyone's talking about Will Smith's slap or Ukraine, Zolensky and Putin or Trump, whatever, it's the same conversations. , the same people are carried out. around the world and I think what people want to know is not what is happening because they see that they are getting an overload of information all the time, they want to know what to think about it and I'm of the opinion that I'm going to tell people what I think about things.

I don't expect you to agree with me, but I do want to challenge what you yourself may be thinking. I want to be firm about what I believe about situations and whether you want to persuade. I'm wrong, we're going to have people from the left and the right. I don't want to be a partisan spectacle. I don't park myself on the right or the left at all. I think I'm a voice for common sense. I see it. In reality, I don't think it's that controversial. In terms of my opinions, I think anyone who reads my book knows that I side with the majority of the 80s in most places, but it's going to be a challenge and if you know, I hope it works.

I will give everything I have and it is a big challenge, probably the biggest I have ever had, but I find it exciting. I love starting from scratch. new studio we built an excavation out of rubble, literally, with concrete slabs, we built this incredible high-tech studio. I was just on a world tour from Australia to the United States and it was so exciting the energy I was getting everywhere. This is a lot of support from this huge company to make it work, but ultimately it's Wayne's rescue, maybe I'll miss it, we'll see, but it won't be for lack of trying and it won't be for lack of trust. and it won't be for lack of self-confidence that I know this is the right show for the right time the public wants someone to cancel cancel culture and because of what happened with good Morning Britain I became, for better or worse, a very public freedom of expression and the right to have an opinion and that will be the core of my program and we have to get back to that.

I think it's a war and I think cancer culture is such a deadly virus over time as a coronavirus really is the damage it can cause to society, I think it's extremely serious and it's getting worse, not better, and I want to cancel it and what could be a better legacy than the man who canceled cancer culture, pierce, thank you, you know how it shows that you know there are a lot of things we agree on and there are some things we don't agree on either. I followed Trump not because he agrees with everything he says, but because I don't want to be trapped in an echo chamber of people who agree. it just tells me things that I already believe and there's a quote I read one day that really resonated with me, I mean, if your friends have the same opinions about you, they probably aren't your opinions, yeah, but I would say my own kids are.

So. Yes, they don't agree with a lot of things, they agree with a lot of things, but they also understand the dangers of this culture where we're going down this slippery slope and they actually understand how important it is to get this debate going. Back to where we used to be with the debate, we have a closing tradition on this podcast, where always the previous guest writes a question for the next question, oh, they don't know who they're writing it for, that's fine, and you won't . anyone, but the question that has been written for you is fine, it is interesting, so I will never be able to read it.

Tony Jack reads it. Slope in the book. What advice would you give your five-year-old self? Just live exactly the dream you want. Currently you are dreaming about good, bad and ugly warts and everyone finds something they are passionate about and at five I was passionate about news I don't know why I can't explain it but I was and so I followed a path of wanting to be in the news business and It's been the biggest journey I could have ever imagined, good and bad, I wouldn't change any of it, nothing, so my advice to my fellow five-year-olds would be, yeah, go ahead, there you go, thank you. pierce thank you I really enjoyed it I appreciate it