Piers Morgan: Why I had to tell my kids I did drugs

11 April 2012
The Weekender

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As he celebrates a lucrative deal to be the new Parky, Piers Morgan talks about divorce, his gorgeous lover, the joys of being famous - and his shame over his drugs past.




Best interviewer in the business? Piers Morgan

There's a bloke fiddling with Piers Morgan's new toy when I arrive at his chaotic but trendy riverside flat. The bloke calls Piers 'mate' and Piers calls him 'mate' back. The toy is a 'bloody clever thing' called a Slingbox, and Piers, once known as 'Boy' Morgan, wants to show it off.

He tells me that it will enable him to pick up Sky Plus on his laptop and, most importantly, let him watch his beloved Arsenal while he's sitting by the pool in Hollywood - where he's going for the next six weeks to record a new series of America's Got Talent.

Piers, you see, is 'properly famous' these days, or so he says. Being properly famous means 'hanging out on the beach with David Hasselhoff, driving the nice fast cars people want me to endorse out there, and staying at the Beverly Wilshire hotel.' The downside has been missing Arsenal matches, which is why the bloke with the 'bloody clever thing' is now his 'mate'. Or, perhaps it's just the way Piers is.

Depending upon which side of the fence you sit on, Piers - who was sacked as editor of the Daily Mirror four years ago and, following the publication of his uproarious bestseller The Insider, has risen phoenix-like from the ashes of ignominy to TV stardom - is either 'that idiot Morgan' or 'a great laugh'.

Personally, I'm in the latter camp. Yes, he can be insufferably conceited. ('I'd go up against any interviewer in the country with a celebrity and get the most out of them,' he tells me.) But he's also a perennially upbeat bloke who, when the going got tough, picked himself up and got going - and going and going.

We're meeting at his south-west-London home, chaotic because he's had the kids - Spencer, 15, Stanley, 11, and Bertie, seven - from his former marriage to Marion Shalloe to stay, to discuss his new BBC1 series, Dark Side Of Fame. It doesn't stop there, though. He tells me he's just signed an exclusive two-year contract with ITV to replace Michael Parkinson, on a 45-minute chat show.

He also writes two weekly columns in The Mail On Sunday, and does regular interviews for GQ magazine that give credibility to his best-interviewer-in-the-business boast. Recently, Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg earned the moniker 'Clegg-over' after confessing to 'up to 30' notches on his bedpost when Piers asked him how many lovers he'd had.

Piers laughs. Clegg dug his own grave when I asked him how many women he'd slept with. The right answer is, "a gentleman would never answer that question".'

Piers himself has led a pretty colourful life. When we meet, he's freshly divorced after a seven-year separation from the mother of his kids following the leaking of a series of ' inappropriate' and amorous emails sent between him and Guardian columnist Marina Hyde.

No longer amorous with Hyde, he's now dating novelist/journalist/blonde bombshell Celia Walden, and has been for several years since interviewing her for GQ. (The ensuing article was rather more breathlessly complimentary than the Clegg assassination, describing her as 'ridiculously beautiful' and comparing her to the French actress Brigitte Bardot.)

Add to this his reputation as a party animal during his earlier journalistic career as editor of The Sun's showbusiness column, and this 'properly famous' bloke has enough skeletons in the closet to fill the pages of every gossip column in the business. Piers, though, is famously tight-lipped when it comes to his own affairs. Still... he has thrown down the gauntlet with that best-interviewer-in-the-business boast. And, as he says, we all have egos.

So, how many women has Piers slept with? 'A gentleman should never answer that,' he parries. One-nil. Drugs? 'My advice is, never answer that one,' he says, playing for time. This is the editor, of course, who lost a privacy case against Naomi Campbell after running an article about her attending Narcotics Anonymous.

I'm not proud of taking drugs and I'll never take them again

Piers would hate to be accused of hypocrisy. Piers? 'I've taken drugs before. It's no big secret. I'm not going to go into precise detail, but I've told my kids I've taken them.

'When the Naomi Campbell case came up, I thought I was going to be asked that in court, so I said to my parents and my kids, 'Look, I took drugs in the past when I was a young thrusting journalist and it seemed as freely available in newsrooms as a cup of tea, but I don't any more and I haven't for a very, very long time."

'When you've got children, you've got to be careful what you say in public. I don't want my children thinking it's cool. What I said to them was, "Look guys, I've known lots of people who've taken drugs in their lives, and the winners stop and the losers carry on. If you remember that, you'll be fine." I'm not proud of taking drugs and I'm not going to take them again. I worked out that they make you feel c**p.'

One-all. I push on. Now the divorce is through, will he make an honest woman of Celia? 'I don't know.' Has he thought about it? 'Perhaps I have.' Has he proposed? 'Well, a gentleman should always reserve that kind of conversation for the lady concerned.' Have they had the conversation? 'No.' Will he? 'I don't know.' He adds, 'She thinks I'm her pre-fame boyfriend. She's on the cusp of big stardom now and I may get thrown to the wolves.' Piers laughs, but I'm not sure whether he's joking.

'Properly famous': Piers Morgan with Amanda Holden and Simon Cowell as judges on 'Britain's Got Talent'

'Properly famous': Piers Morgan with Amanda Holden and Simon Cowell as judges on 'Britain's Got Talent'

We're now sitting on the balcony of Piers' flat overlooking the Thames, so the bloke can get on with his fiddling. I was last here a few years ago when Boy Morgan was, himself, on the cusp of major stardom. He's more at ease today, less agitated. He tells me that, at 43, he's not only 'properly famous' but 'properly relaxed', too. 'In the last couple of years I've started to feel a lot more content,' he says. 'When you're editing, you're never really content. There's always tension, chaos, friction, drama and adrenaline,' he says, pouring me freshly made coffee.

'If you're financially secure, in a happy relationship, you have a great relationship with your kids and there's no animosity in your life, you can really enjoy yourself.

'I used to have loads of animosity going on - personally and professionally; and a lot of friction. But I don't have any at the moment. Friction's always round the corner because stuff happens, but right now things are good.

'The best thing about getting fired was that it woke me up to getting back to the real world. The only thing I miss are the people, but because the industry's in long-term decline, it's tough out there.

'I was able to go and breathe fresh air, get healthy, see friends, hang out with my family and kids a bit more. The media's great but it's also rankly, bitchy, puritanical, hypocritical and absurdly, incredibly competitive - ferocious isn't too strong a word. It was great fun, but it's almost a relief not to be in it any more.'

The Boy did, of course, grow up in this rankly, bitchy, incredibly competitive environment. But the bitchiness is more measured these days. He says his celebrity self is more of a caricature rather than the real Piers Morgan. 'I think it's quite dangerous to put all of yourself out there. You're better off having a slight caricature, one about whom you can almost say, "God, did you see what that idiot Morgan was up to the other day?" My family and friends don't recognise me from the TV stuff I do.

'When I go back to my family home, my brother comes down and he'll be back from Iraq or something, and we'll have a proper conversation about that. It feels a different world to the one I inhabit - which is all fairly trivial by comparison.'

Growing up a Catholic in a village in Sussex, one of four children, Piers is passionate about his family. His parents share his country home and he's converted an outbuilding for his grandmother. When he was sacked from the Mirror after publishing fake photographs of British soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners, his family and his old friends were a tower of strength.

'I've just interviewed the actor Mickey Rourke for Dark Side Of Fame,' he says. 'He was sitting there, this guy with the smashed-up face and gnarled hands, saying, "Do you know what losing is? It's when you ring up a restaurant in Hollywood and they know who you are, but they say they can't give you a table."

My family and friends don't recognise me from the TV stuff I do

'I experienced the dark side of notoriety more than fame after those pictures. The Christmas card list halved, and I didn't hear from a single politician other than John Reid. I had lots of good high-profile friends and lots of non-high-profile friends who rallied round.

'I remember coming out of the Mirror and, within ten minutes of being sacked, I had Ian Botham on the phone saying, "Come to my place in Spain, just hide away if you want", Marco Pierre White saying, "Come and get drunk at Drones " - which I did for about ten hours - and Mohamed Al Fayed chuckling, "Come and be a doorman at Harrods." I also had some really close friends come round here, and we just ate Chinese food and drank ourselves into oblivion watching these weird, obituary-style things on TV - and I just felt this huge sense of being freed.'

Freed? 'Yeah,' he says. 'When you're a 28-year-old guy with no kids, you think nothing of riding roughshod over people's lives. Then, when you get to 39 and you've been through a few domestic scenarios yourself, your heart's no longer in kiss-and-tells. It stops being so funny when you go through similar stuff yourself, and you see the repercussions and you know how you feel and other people feel. It's not quite such a hoot as it seems in a newspaper office. The moment you start thinking like that, you shouldn't be editing a tabloid newspaper. It's not really the most sentimental of places to find yourself, and neither should it be.'

But the poacher has now, of course, turned gamekeeper. His ITV chatshow contract - he says he wants to combine the brilliance of Michael Parkinson with the edge of the old David Frost - will, inevitably, make him the A-list star here that he is in the States. How does he deal with the paparazzi?

'I couldn't give a monkey's,' he says. 'I laugh when I hear these stars bleating about media intrusion - the Hugh Grants of this world. What he really means is he wished he hadn't been caught with a hooker in his car. He wants it to be our fault, not his. I know it's down to me and no one else if I decide to run off and snort cocaine with Kate Moss or jump into bed with Graham Norton.

'I think I understand how it works and have a healthy, amused view of it. Perhaps the worst time was when I came out of a Test match recently with my kids at about 6pm, so everyone was drunk. All the bonhomie of earlier was replaced with "Oi, Morgan, you w***er." And my kids were saying, "That guy just called you a w***er." To which I replied, "Well, he's not wrong." You've got to laugh.'

Dark Side Of Fame starts next month on BBC1

SO WHO WOULD BE PIERS MORGAN'S IDEAL CHAT SHOW GUESTS?

Breathtakingly beautiful: Princess Diana

Breathtakingly beautiful: Princess Diana

Princess Diana

I enjoyed an extraordinary private lunch with her and Prince William once, and realised why so many men fell in love with her. Amusing, indiscreet and breathtakingly beautiful.

Jack Nicholson

A man who thinks, rightly, that good PR means being photographed on a yacht every summer with five gorgeous 20-year-old girls, 20 Budweisers, and five boxes of pizza.

Winston Churchill

The greatest political leader of all time: Fearless, free-spirited, magnificently eloquent, and the perfect guest to hit the brandies and cigars with as midnight beckons.

Andrew 'Freddie' Flintoff

The epitome of the great British sportsman: ferociously loyal, swashbuckling, hugely patriotic, and wonderfully entertaining company over dinner.

 

Dream chat show: (From left) Jack Nicholson; Winston Churchill; Andrew Flintoff and Rupert Murdoch

Rupert Murdoch

The man who made me editor of the world's biggest-selling newspaper when I was only 28. I'd like to pour him a cherry brandy (his favourite) and say, 'Thanks a lot, cobber.'

Paris Hilton

Every party needs a dumb blonde. Last time I saw her was at Hugh Hefner's Playboy Mansion. Paris was wearing just underwear and a big smile, and she was all over me like a rash.

 

From left: Paris Hilton; Don Simpson's Top Gun; Truman Capote; Marlene Dietrich

Don Simpson

Top Gun producer who spent his entire adult life (he died in 1996, aged 52) mired in hookers, booze and drugs - while making huge hit movies. The ultimate party animal.

Incredibly sexy: Helen Mirren

Incredibly sexy: Helen Mirren

Truman Capote

A superb writer (In Cold Blood, Breakfast At Tiffany's), social butterfly and scandal-monger. He was the best exponent of journalistic 'reportage' I have ever read.

Marlene Dietrich

The cabaret-singer turned movie star was the highest-paid actress of the early 1930s - and the only German woman I've ever fancied. You just know she'd be fantastic fun.

Dame Helen Mirren

I spent an hour and a half in a hotel bedroom with her last month - for an interview, I might add - and found her utterly hilarious, shockingly forthright, and incredibly sexy.

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