Piers Morgan has accused Alex Beresford of a ‘premeditated attack’ during their on-air Meghan Markle row that cost him his job at Good Morning Britain (GMB).
The 56-year-old sensationally quit the ITV breakfast show last month, in the wake of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex‘s bombshell interview with Oprah Winfrey.
Before his departure from the show, Morgan clashed on air with GMB weatherman Beresford, who accused him of ‘trashing’ the actress in an explosive row.
The heated clash caused MailOnline columnist Morgan to storm off set during the live broadcast before quitting the show later that same day.
Sitting down for his own tell-all with Fox News host Tucker Carlson aired Monday, Morgan said Beresford’s comments were part of a ‘premeditated attack’.
During his hour-long interview with the US television host, he called the 40-year-old Beresford ‘the stand-in weather guy’ and ‘not a journalist’.
Asked how he felt when co-host Susanna Reid apologised for his behaviour on his last day at GMB, Morgan said he was ‘disappointed’ but said he believed she may have acted ‘in the grip of fear’ of ‘a huge Twitter pile-on’.
Morgan also poured cold water on allegations that Meghan received racist coverage in the British Press, saying: ‘I never saw that, I don’t believe that’.
Piers Morgan has accused Alex Beresford of a ‘premeditated attack’ during their on-air Meghan Markle row that cost him his job at Good Morning Britain (GMB)
The 56-year-old sensationally quit the ITV breakfast show last month, in the wake of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s bombshell interview with Oprah Winfrey. Before his departure from the show, Morgan clashed on air with GMB weatherman Beresford
Morgan set off a social media firestorm the day after the Oprah interview when he said he ‘didn’t believe a word’ of what Meghan said about experiencing racism within the Royal Family
Speaking to Tucker, he said of Beresford: ‘He is the stand-in weather guy, he’s not a journalist, he’s someone I’ve helped in his career like he has asked me to.
‘He sent me a private message in which he expressed some concern about what he felt I wasn’t really understanding about where Meghan Markle was coming from as a bi-racial woman. He is himself a bi-racial man so he wanted to explain so I said come on air, let’s have the conversation.
‘But the moment he came on air, he came with a pretty premeditated attack on me on a pretty personal level and frankly I just wasn’t going to have it.
‘I walked off… I was quite angry in the moment, he claimed that I have a personal vendetta against Meghan Markle, which I don’t.’
During the GMB clash, Beresford responded to Morgan’s claims that he used to talk to Meghan and she ‘dropped him’ once she started dating Prince Harry.
He said: ‘I understand that you don’t like Meghan Markle, you’ve made it so clear a number of times on this programme, and I understand you’ve got a personal relationship with Meghan Markle and she cut you off.’
Beresford told Morgan: ‘She’s entitled to cut you off if she wants to’ – prompting Morgan to then storm off the GMB set.
Morgan was also asked by Tucker how he felt the day after he stormed off set, when his co-host Reid apologised for his behaviour.
Sitting down for his own tell-all with Fox News host Tucker Carlson aired Monday, Morgan said Beresford’s comments were part of a ‘premeditated attack’
During the GMB clash, Beresford responded to Morgan’s claims that he used to talk to Meghan and she ‘dropped him’ once she started dating Prince Harry. Beresford told Morgan: ‘She’s entitled to cut you off if she wants to’ – prompting Morgan to then storm off the GMB set
Morgan sat down for his own tell-all with Fox News host Tucker Carlson aired Monday, where he vowed to reveal ‘MY truth’ about the controversy surrounding his criticism of Meghan and Harry that led to his departure from Good Morning Britain
‘It seems like you have affection for her,’ Tuckers said.
Morgan replied: ‘I was disappointed, but she might have done it in the grip of fear, that if she spoke too highly in favour of me, the same thing might happen to her.
‘There would be a huge Twitter pile-on. By an orchestrated mob.’
The former editor of the Daily Mirror also said he doubted that Meghan had been subjected to racist coverage by the British Press.
Morgan told Tucker: ‘Contrary to what many Americans have been led to believe, the press coverage of these two right up to the wedding was completely over-the-top euphoric. Everyone in Britain was thrilled that finally we were having a non-white bride in the royal family, it hadn’t happened.
‘We were all very happy about this. I wrote about how wonderful it was on the wedding day. This narrative from the start that she was was bombarded with horrible, hateful, racist press coverage is another disingenuous load of nonsense fuelled by the Oprah Winfrey show where they flashed up a series of headlines, many of which had been deliberately cut to create a misconstrued impression, and many were actually American tabloids not British.
‘But no, this narrative had to be believed, that Meghan Markle was targeted for her skin color by the beastly British tabloids.
‘I never saw that, I don’t believe that, I’m a former British tabloid editor myself and I would know if there was racist coverage in the British papers and there wasn’t.
‘There may have been on social media because that’s a cesspit, we know that, but I didn’t see it in the mainstream British Press.’