He was educated at the independent Cumnor House prep school between the ages of seven and 13, then Chailey School, a comprehensive secondary school in Chailey, followed by Priory School, Lewes, for sixth form.
His father died when Morgan was 11 months old his mother later married Glynne Pughe-Morgan, a Welsh pub landlord who later worked in the meat distribution business, and he took his stepfather's surname. A few months after his birth, the family moved to Newick, East Sussex. He has a brother, Jeremy, who is older than him by two years. With regard to his religious views, Morgan still identifies as a Catholic due to his mother's influence, and believes in an afterlife, but does not "go to Confession, probably because it would take too long". Morgan was born Piers Stefan O'Meara on 30 March 1965 in Surrey, the son of Vincent Eamonn O'Meara, an Irish dentist from County Offaly, and Gabrielle Georgina Sybille (née Oliver), an English woman who raised Morgan Catholic. Ofcom received over 57,000 complaints from viewers, including a complaint from Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, herself Morgan was subsequently cleared of wrongdoing by Ofcom. On 9 March 2021, Morgan left the programme with immediate effect, following his criticism of the Oprah with Meghan and Harry interview. Morgan's outspoken views and controversial comments on Good Morning Britain led Ofcom to adjudicate on multiple occasions.
The following year, he was criticised in the findings of the Leveson Inquiry by chair Brian Leveson, who stated that comments made in Morgan's testimony about phone hacking were "utterly unpersuasive" and "that he was aware that it was taking place in the press as a whole and that he was sufficiently unembarrassed by what was criminal behaviour that he was prepared to joke about it". In 2011, Morgan denied having ever hacked a phone and stated that he had not, "to my knowledge published any story obtained from the hacking of a phone". Morgan was the editor of the Daily Mirror during the period in which the paper was implicated in the phone hacking scandal. The new programme, Piers Morgan Uncensored, began on 25 April 2022.
In September 2021, it was announced Morgan would join News Corp as a presenter on their new television channel TalkTV and as a columnist for The Sun and New York Post.
In 2008, he won The Celebrity Apprentice US appearing with future US President Donald Trump. Morgan also co-presented the ITV Breakfast programme Good Morning Britain with Susanna Reid from 2015 to 2021, and was a judge on both America's Got Talent (2006–2011) and Britain's Got Talent (2007–2010). He was the editorial director of First News during 2006 to 2007.Īs a television presenter, Morgan has previously hosted the ITV talk show Life Stories from 2009 to 2021 as well as the CNN chat show Piers Morgan Live from 2011 to 2014. From 1995, Morgan edited the Daily Mirror, but was sacked in 2004. In 1994, aged 29, he was appointed editor of the News of the World by Rupert Murdoch, which made him the youngest editor of a British national newspaper in more than half a century. He began his Fleet Street career in 1988 at The Sun. Piers Stefan Pughe-Morgan ( / p ɪər z/ né O'Meara born 30 March 1965) is an English broadcaster, journalist, writer, and television personality.