Piers Morgan (3 page)

When Piers was required to play dirty, he would do so. In 1993, the singer Holly Johnson of Frankie Goes To Hollywood revealed that he was HIV positive, something much feared and little understood back then. Piers was one of the first with the story but he hadn’t got it himself. Rather, Holly gave an interview to
The Times Magazine
– but
The Times,
like the
Sun,
was owned by Rupert Murdoch and based in the same premises in Wapping,
East London. Piers might have been coy about how he’d stumbled on his exclusive but it wasn’t so hard to guess.

He was also extremely good at being in the right place at the right time. May 1993 saw him in Monte Carlo at the World Music Awards, where he had a ringside view of a spat between supermodels Carla Bruni (now married to President Nicolas Sarkozy) and Claudia Schiffer over Prince Albert of Monaco. According to Piers, Carla won. Headed up by a headline that read:
I SAW SCHEMING CARLA NICK CLAUDIA’S PRINCE,
the piece also had a large strapline, which read: ‘Piers Morgan is at the next table as the catfight fur flies’.

Again, he managed to place himself at the centre of the story: ‘Supermodels Claudia Schiffer and Carla Bruni fought like cat and cat over Prince Albert of Monaco at the World Music Awards in Monte Carlo,’ he rather breathlessly began. A piece then followed about the two women shooting daggers at one another. Claudia, who had been dating Prince Albert, was initially sitting beside him throughout the awards (and near Michael Jackson), but, when forced to leave her seat to present an award, Carla lost no time in bagging said seat for herself. Claudia claimed it back, only to lose out once again at the subsequent dinner at the Hotel de Paris, when Carla managed to end up beside the Prince, who, according to Piers, ‘looked like the cat who took his pick of two bowls of cream’.

Michael Jackson was also present that evening, with a companion who didn’t attract too much notice at the
time, but that was in May 1993. By the August, a criminal investigation had begun into allegations that Jackson had sexually abused a teenage boy called Jordan Chandler. Piers suddenly realised he’d been eyewitness to another big story. Unearthing the photos of the night in question, there was Michael with a young boy on his knee – a relationship that had been widely known about, although until then the implication had been that Michael was actually acting as the child’s surrogate father (and, indeed, the accusations have never been proven, not least because Jackson unwisely decided to pay the family off in possibly the worst decision of his career).

True to form, Piers not only published the inside details of the event in question, in which he referred to the child as ‘Jordan Schwartz’ (Schwartz was, in fact, the name of his stepfather), but again placed himself at the centre of it all. ‘I watched stars’ horror as Jacko cuddled the boy,’ he proclaimed, with an accompanying photograph of Michael Jackson with Jordan on his knee. Of course, this was to be an even bigger story as it marked the start of the slow decline of one of the world’s most famous entertainers.

Piers’ natural instinct for a story was otherwise serving him well. ‘Jordan giggled as the superstar singer hugged and cuddled him in front of a huge VIP audience and millions of TV viewers,’ he solemnly proclaimed. ‘Their extraordinary antics were the talk of the celebrity-packed room at Monte Carlo’s famous Sporting Club.’ There followed dark remarks from various unnamed celebrities – ‘It was disgusting. I wouldn’t let him anywhere near a
son of mine’ – while Piers himself commented on how uncomfortable it looked and how he wouldn’t have been at all happy had Jordan been his own child.

No one quite knew how big this particular story was to grow, but Piers was now proving that his news sense was sharper than it had ever been. Nor was it just Kelvin MacKenzie who was delighted that his young hiring had turned out to be such a success; the ultimate owner of the
Sun,
Rupert Murdoch, was also beginning to notice his antics. Here was a reporter with not just promise and flair but also an ability to be in the right place at the right time. He was beginning to stand head and shoulders above the rest.

But it wasn’t all solemn allegations. The next partner in the celebrity dance that Piers was creating around himself was Chris Evans. At that stage, Evans was building up his own career the first time round, making a name for himself on Channel 4’s
The Big Breakfast.
He had refused an interview unless Piers beat him at tennis; Piers duly obliged and soon Chris was confiding in him.
I’VE COURT YOU, EVANS,
blasted the headline, followed by, ‘Chris has to spill the beans after I smash him at tennis.’ Evans himself was very similar to Piers: both were brash young men, eager to make names for themselves in the media, and, like Piers, Evans was to blow the opportunity only to get a second chance.

‘There were various embarrassing questions I wanted to ask
Big Breakfast
star Chris during our interview – questions he said he had no intention of answering unless I
beat him at tennis,’ began Piers. ‘So the scene was set.’ The duo adjourned to the Harbour Club in West London and, minutes later, Chris was telling Piers, ‘Bob’s great. I’ve only seen him about four or five times, but he’s a good laugh.’ The ‘Bob’ in question was Bob Geldof, whose company – Planet 24 – owned
The Big Breakfast.

There were, however, a good many examples in the course of the chat that showed both the volatility of Evans’ nature – something that would seriously derail his career and from which he has only recently recovered – and Piers’ own ability to extract highly revealing anecdotes from his subjects. Back then, Chris Evans was still something of an unknown quantity but stories were beginning to circulate, including one to the effect that he had been sacked from Radio Piccadilly in Manchester for making jokes about eating a cat. ‘He [the controller] said it was offensive to cat-owners and that I was a little shit, who would be fired if I said anything like that again,’ revealed Chris. ‘So I walked out on the spot instead.’ It was far from being the last time that Evans walked out on a job, a habit that was in danger of damaging his career.

He was also forthcoming about his days as a kissogram. ‘It was purely business,’ he said. ‘Other kissogram agencies at that time were charging £18 a time and there wasn’t one in my hometown of Warrington so I started up at £6 a time and we promptly built up a massive clientele.’

If that were not enough, both Piers and Chris proved themselves to have the common touch: a knack for the kind of story that would not only amuse but also make
the reader think they were talking to one of their own. Asked what his most embarrassing act as a star had been, Evans replied, ‘It was a charity thing I did for Roy Castle last year. There were 26,000 people there, and they wanted me to dress up as a schoolboy and aim a catapult at this stunning model’s bottom. I remember saying to the organisers, “I’ll do it because it’s for charity, but I hope you realise I wouldn’t if you were paying me any amount of money…”’ Game, set and match to both of them.

Piers was by then becoming such a celebrity in his own right that he was accorded the ultimate accolade of being the victim of the ‘gunge tank’ on BBC1’s
Noel’s House Party,
when viewers had to choose between him and the
Daily Mirror’
s Rick Sky (his predecessor on ‘Bizarre’) – they eventually plumped for Piers. ‘The nation’s lost its taste,’ he sighed, while being ‘gunged’.

This was later picked up by the
Independent,
who referred to his ‘hideously self-reverential’ column in the
Sun.
So it might have been, but the technique was also bringing the writer his own level of fame. By this point, the satirical magazine
Private Eye
had certainly noticed him, currently dubbing him Piers ‘Gormless’ Morgan, a nickname that might have been amusing but, it must be said, was far from true.

Events were showing Piers to be a really talented journalist, one who within the space of a few short years had gone from being a complete beginner to a person more than capable of holding his own among the celebrities he
interviewed. He might not yet have become a household name (indeed, this was some years away), but
Sun
readers knew him, as did the celebrities with whom he mingled and so, most importantly, did Rupert Murdoch, one of the world’s most powerful media barons.

Piers’ timing, as ever, could not have been better for what was to happen next. He had learned his trade at the hands of a master, Kelvin MacKenzie. Now he was as adept as any at practising some of the darker arts associated with his profession, and he was capable of not only nosing out a story but also of creating one himself pretty much out of thin air, often with himself in the centre of it. He was a seriously talented journalist and great things were expected of him.

At the same time, over at the
News Of The World
– a Sunday tabloid with the country’s biggest circulation, also owned by one R. Murdoch – crises had been rumbling on the backburner. In December 1993, the paper’s editor Patsy Chapman (in situ since 1988) signed off ill. The paper’s deputy – Stuart Higgins – had been standing in for her, but now a merry-go-round of job shifts was about to take place. And so, in January 1994, Kelvin MacKenzie stepped down from his colossally successful tenure at the
Sun
and became managing editor of BSkyB television, which was also Murdoch-owned but would not suit him anywhere near as well as the
Sun.
Higgins stepped across to become editor of the
Sun,
while, at the
News Of The World,
it was now obvious that Chapman would not be coming back.

This left a vacancy and so, to the sound of jaws dropping all over Fleet Street, Murdoch promoted twenty-
eight-year
-old Piers Morgan to the editor’s chair, making him the youngest editor of a national newspaper in over fifty years. Technically, he was ‘acting editor’ (the situation with Patsy Chapman was treated with some sensitivity), but in reality he had managed to nab the top job.

Piers himself was away at the time and was as staggered – and delighted – as anyone else. Usually, it took decades on Fleet Street to reach the very top and yet there he was, after a mere five years, editing the country’s biggest name.

‘I don’t think anything will beat walking on Miami Beach in 1994, age twenty-eight, barefoot in the surf, and getting a call from Rupert Murdoch as he politely informed me I was going to be running the biggest newspaper in the world,’ he admitted afterwards, and, for all the subsequent glories, you would be hard put not to suspect this is a view he holds to this day. At the time, however, he kept things dignified. ‘I am delighted to be given this tremendous opportunity,’ he said. ‘The
News Of The World
is a national institution and I am eagerly looking forward to the exciting challenge of acting as its editor.’

But this was not the first time that he had been offered a new job. In 1993, Kelvin MacKenzie had offered him the post of assistant editorship of the
Sun,
but Piers had turned it down. ‘I just didn’t want to do it then,’ he said later. ‘I wasn’t ready and I thought I contributed more by staying on “Bizarre”.’ But this was different; ‘Bizarre’ itself was also turning into a sort of kingmaker for editors: founder
John Blake had gone on to become editor of the
People,
while another ‘Bizarre editor’ (Martin Dunn) ended up in the top chair of
Today
and, subsequently, the
New York Daily News.

As Piers would later put it, in some ways, ‘Bizarre’ was a newspaper-within-a-newspaper and so good training for the next step. ‘Obviously, Kelvin had helped, but you have to realise I was filling the column five days a week, running it like a mini-newspaper,’ he recalled. ‘I had a staff of four and my own budget. I had been offered promotion as features editor of the
Sun,
but turned it down, feeling I wasn’t ready yet to be a faceless executive.’

A telling remark, for Piers was never ready to be a faceless anything.

The appointment might have caused widespread astonishment, but those who really knew Piers were convinced he was up to the job. ‘Piers is arrogant and ambitious,’ said Rick Sky, his predecessor on ‘Bizarre’ and now a rival columnist at the
Daily Mirror.
‘But in our world, that’s no criticism. He’s a good operator and he shouldn’t be underestimated. He will surprise everyone.’

Piers himself was (uncharacteristically) modest but he knew just the opportunity that now lay ahead. ‘I’ll just do my best,’ he declared, as the news became public. ‘You don’t have to be an expert. When I went to “Bizarre”, I said I knew nothing about pop music. All these years on, I still don’t know anything about pop music but I know how to make the column work for readers.’

And he would go on to prove that he knew exactly
how to make the
News Of The World
work for its readers, too.

Piers was called upon to hit the ground running, and so he did; he might have felt nervous behind the scenes but he wasn’t about to show it. ‘When you’re the editor of a paper, you’ve got to exude absolute confidence from the moment you get in to the moment you go to bed because, if you don’t, the staff are going to be, “Oh God, he doesn’t know what he’s doing!” I had to pretend I knew what I was doing, even if I didn’t,’ he revealed later on.

In the meantime, he had to get his team together – and fast. Journalist Sue Carroll had been deputy editor of the
News Of The World
and had also been stepping into Patsy Chapman’s shoes, as and when necessary. Now she was offered an executive post but turned it down and left the paper. Rather ironically, several years later and after a stint at the
Sun,
she was to end up as the
Mirror’
s star columnist, but Piers himself had made an effort to get her to stay, something that smoothed the way for their relationship further down the line.

Instead, Phil Hall was taken on as Piers’ deputy. With a background on the
People
and the
Sunday Express,
he was felt to have a strong news background. Meanwhile, the cavalcade thundered on: in June, it was announced that Patsy was not coming back, and Piers was promoted from acting editor to the real thing, although, in fact, everyone had known, right from the start, that he was the de facto guy in charge.