Piers Morgan takes his job as the Queen’s number one hype-man so seriously, that we’re not entirely sure he’s not being paid to get pissed off at her expense on national television. Really, how else do you explain the many (many) times he’s defended Her Majesty over the smallest of insults or stormed off of one of Britain’s most popular morning TV shows because he didn’t like the fact that a member of the royal family was being painted as racist for possibly saying racist things.
Morgan sat down with comedian Bill Maher recently for an episode of Maher’s podcast Club Random, to talk about the incident that led to his exit from ITV’s Good Morning Britain and, once again, the TV personality became visibly upset over a fairly tame joke Maher made about Queen Elizabeth II. The interview started with Maher bringing up Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s infamous Oprah interview — something Morgan has fixated on quite a bit over the years thanks to his weird obsession with the former Suits actress. Maher was trying to make the point that the publicized sit-down was unnecessary, but he just had to sneak in a dig at the Queen and Morgan wasn’t having it.
“Meghan and Harry, they go on Oprah, which itself, you know, why do you need to do that. Ok, so the royal family is accused of racism. I’m sure the old bag’s gotta be 100 …” Maher began before Morgan quickly cut him off.
“Can you not call Her Majesty ‘the old bag’?” he asked, clearly annoyed over the slight. Morgan’s response was so out of left field that a shocked Maher responded, “Really?”
“The Queen has been on that throne 70 years and actually I would say of all leaders of any kind in the world, probably, despite everything, remains the most respected leader of all of the world,” Morgan explained. “You can’t call her offensive names in my presence without me calling you out on it.”
The interview only grew more awkward and contentious from there as Maher compared Britain’s strange loyalty to a group of aging nepo babies that force their subjects to refer to them with weird titles like, “Your Highness” to his own experience with Catholicism.
“Is this a good time to say I’m a Catholic?” Morgan eventually asked before the pair sparred over the difference between calling Queen Elizabeth II “Your Majesty” and the leader of the American government, “Mr. President.” One is a job title, one is a mere formality imposed by a group of individuals who inherited their rank and wealth and have done little to actually earn it, but sure. The argument eventually ended with Morgan once again trying to convince Maher that old Lizzie isn’t really that bad. How? By explaining how funny and “whip-smart” she is with a story about a royal garden party at Windsor Castle where the Queen lamented that thousands of peasants were trampling on the lawns of her immaculate gardens.
Look, anyone who’s seen The Crown knows these people are not worth this much faux outrage.
You can watch the full interview below (or just skip to the five-minute mark where all the drama starts).