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Piers Morgan: Im just putting opinions out there. Its my job

This week Morgan has taken on the Womens March, argued with Ewan McGregor, and boasted about being Donald Trumps best British friend. Why does he do it? Does he even believe what he says?

Piers Morgan last cried when his grandmother died, a little more than three years ago. Before that, he cant remember. Im not a crier, really. He sees himself more as a pantomime villain, and I thoroughly enjoy playing up to it. I cant even imagine the pressure of being some kind of national treasure. So for me, the panto villain part, I actually enjoy that whole thing.

Even by his own notorious standards, Morgan has had a fractious week. His Daily Mail column on Monday, which criticised last weekends womens marches, provoked Ewan McGregor to cancel an appearance on Good Morning Britain in protest. Morgan retaliated with another column calling the actor a paedophile-loving hypocrite. Feminists were furious with him all over again when he defended the right of employers to compel female staff to wear high heels.

Then, as Theresa May prepared to meet Donald Trump, he taunted Downing Street by firing off a public memo in the Mail, advising the PM or, to put it another way, showing off about how to approach his friend, the president. If its all going horribly wrong, dont hesitate to mention my name or even give me a call directly from the Oval Office and I will smooth things over. Its the very least I can do for my country. A memorable highlight came with his mute appearance at the National Television awards. He stood beside his Good Morning Britain co-presenter Susanna Reid, who had gagged him with his own tie.

It was Susannas idea, he says. We were in the car on the way, and she said, I think I know exactly how to get a joyous reaction from the nation. And it was indeed one of the great moments in British television, and the nation rejoiced.

The only detail of the weeks dramas that appears to have troubled Morgan was the discovery that working with him makes Reid cry.

I was surprised, he says, suddenly quieter. Because shes never cried at work, never seen her like that at all. So it was an interesting thing for me to discover this week that my co-host quite often goes home from work and cries. Its probably not always unconnected to me. How does he feel about that? A bit uneasy, actually. Quieter still. Yeah. A bit uneasy.

Ive known Morgan a little ever since he was the loud, precociously young editor of the Daily Mirror in the 1990s, and have always enjoyed his company tremendously. But our paths havent crossed since Trumps bid for the presidency propelled the journalist into his surprise new role as the leader of the free worlds best friend in Britain. The pair have been on close terms since 2008, when Morgan won the first series of Celebrity Apprentice, and Morgan now performs the role of Trumps tirelessly loyal defender while constantly claiming to be not a political sympathiser but just a personal friend.

When I watched Morgan reduce a young female guest to tears on Good Morning Britain two weeks ago, berating her as the worst kind of mother, I wondered whether I would still enjoy his company. The tone felt uncomfortably ugly, more in keeping with an altright online troll than the mischief-maker who used to conduct playful feuds with clowns like Jeremy Clarkson. This weeks events could be read by critics as further evidence to support the unhappy impression that cheerleading for Trump has soured Morgan, and turned him into a rightwing, misogynistic bully.

If one is looking for further evidence to confirm that impression, Morgan doesnt disappoint. The 51-year-old bounces into his local pub, just off Kensington High Street, and opens with his reaction to Trumps comments about waterboarding and torture he is exercised by the BBCs misreporting of what Trump said. There is, as you know, a massive debate in America about waterboarding. I dont personally subscribe to torture. But its an arguable point as to whether waterboarding constitutes torture which is startlingly tepid for a man who once campaigned against the abuse of Iraqi detainees by coalition forces.

Morgan has been friends with Trump since he won Celebrity Apprentice in 2008. Photograph: Photowire/BEI/Shutterstock

He refers to a swarm of migration through Europe, and defends Trumps comment about wanting women to be punished for having illegal abortions. It would be a pretty logical thing for somebody who believes abortions a crime.

Critics who suspect Morgan will say anything to generate attention might equally seize upon his admission that this weeks controversies are completely connected to the fact that he has a new series of Piers Morgans Life Stories on ITV next week. He is strategising to maximise publicity all the time, he says freely. Of course! Everyone on TV is. Im just better at it than most of them.

Whether or not Morgan would welcome this, the truth is that I nevertheless find him much more nuanced and less cocksure than his public persona or Twitter feed might suggest. The reliably consistent theme in all of his feuds is intolerance of hypocrisy.

So his objection to the womens marches, he explains, is simply this. How does it help the cause for any woman on that march fighting for genuine issues, for equality and everything else, for one of the lead speakers Madonna to talk openly about having had dreams of blowing up the White House? Im not sure why Morgan would take Madonna seriously, when she herself has said she was speaking metaphorically, and he was willing to take Trump at his word last year (he denied he had meant to incite Hillary Clintons assassination during a rally speech). Because if you make a threat like that at an airport, youd be arrested and put in jail. Why should it be a different rule for Madonna? I point out that she wasnt at an airport, but another speakers incest joke about Trumps daughter struck Morgan as similarly offensive.

Ivanka Trump is a mother of three, very hardworking. I know her very well and I felt really incensed on her behalf when the sisterhood decided to be incredibly offensive about her whilst at a rally designed to counter the anti-women rhetoric of the President Donald Trump. Theres a hypocrisy there which I just found ridiculous. If your main issue with Trump is the way that he talks to people, and the language and the belligerence and the bombast and the wording, then I dont think you should be doing the same thing to him.

What drives Morgan quite mad is hypocritical virtue signalling masquerading as political engagement. Ewan McGregor was basically trying to position me as a great woman-hater. So, I decided to just take a look at his own record in this area, and load of interviews he gave about his great friend Roman Polanski, what a fine man he was, how sorry he was that he had to go to prison, blah, blah, blah and Im like, Really? I wonder how the sisterhood who currently have you down as the No 1 hero for womens rights in the world would feel knowing that Roman Polanski admitted his crime, then left the country to avoid justice when he was facing a long prison sentence for raping, drugging and sodomising a 13-year-old girl?

Why does McGregors affection for Polanksi discredit his feminist credentials, but not Morgans for Trump? Trump hasnt been convicted of raping anyone. Look, my position has been consistently, from day one,that I wouldnt vote for him. But I do know him very well, and I would just like to slightly offer a more tempered view of the man that is being described everywhere as the new Hitler and the monster. I just think now hes there, its like Brexit; I voted remain, but Ive always been a glass-half-full person, and Im prepared to have an open dialogue with people like Nigel Farage about how we now maximise the opportunity of Brexit. The same with Trump. I find the hysteria just pointless and absurd and self-defeating and ridiculous. Ive got friends of mine literally losing their minds. And Im like, calm down, please calm down. I know this guy.

Coming from Morgan, who personally wrote the paedophile-loving headline for his McGregor column, this will strike some as a bit rich, but he goes on: Its very important in this extremity of debate, the kind of thing that led to Jo Cox getting killed, to be calm. Isnt Morgan himself an arch professional provocateur? But Im just putting opinions out there. Im a columnist, its my job. Isnt anyone else allowed to hold contentious views? Of course! And coming from a highly opinionated family, Im drawn to people who have opinions and are prepared to argue them.

I would have thought Madonna, who Morgan never tires of attacking, would fall into that category. No, because she has an opinion quota based on this pure ability to shock and offend, which I find pointless, quite cliched and increasingly very nauseating.

Morgan never tires of attacking celebrities such as Hugh Grant or Steve Coogan either, for whining about the press. But all the complaints made by those two actors wouldnt amount to a fraction of Trumps grievances with the mainstream media, of which Morgan with two newspaper columns and three TV shows is unquestionably a member.

I dont particularly consider myself to be MSM. Id probably be more a kind of renegade; Im RMSM, renegade mainstream media. I dont think the mainstream media has ever fully made me a paid-up member of their club.. As he breaks off this line of thought to tweet about his latest Daily Mail column, I suggest hes on a sticky wicket here. OK, alright. But I am afraid that the journalists have to stop whining.

It was an interesting thing for me to discover that my co-host quite often goes home from work and cries Morgan with Susanna Reid at the National Television awards. Photograph: Jeff Spicer/Getty Images

As a fanatical champion of a robust free press, surely he thinks Trump should stop whining? Its a good point, he concedes. My honest answer is I think theyve all got to calm down . I think Trump has to have a more respectful relationship with the media and they have to have it with him.

For all Morgans ferocious rhetoric, he is surprisingly willing to concede points. Id found his defence of employers forcing women to wear heels suspiciously unpersuasive, and the more we talk, the more ground he gives. Im only saying it to keep the debate going, he admits at one point and when I remind him he praised Julia Roberts for going barefoot on the red carpet at Cannes last year, in protest at the festivals insistence that women attending screenings wear heels, for a fleeting second he looks sheepish. I thought that was quite cool, yes. In an interview with the Times last year, he in fact offered up Robertss protest as an example of what real feminism looked like, didnt he? OK, I think thats a fair point.

Real feminism, Morgan maintains, is not about being a man-hating victim but a strong woman. My mother is an incredibly strong, independent woman. My sister is. My grandmother was. I was brought up around incredibly strong, independent women. Im married to a strong, independent woman. I absolutely define myself as a feminist and take issue with people who think Im not, because by the yardstick of what I give to feminism, which is genuine pursuit of equality in all things for women, I think I pass that test, I do. I do, I love women. Ive always been surrounded bywomen who would never dream of being pushed around by men.

This, I suggest, might be the problem. Go on, he says, genuinely interested. Because Im actually on a learning curve here. When ones only ever known strong women, it can be easy to feel exasperated with those who have suffered experiences that make Morgans idea of strength a pretty tall order. It becomes dangerously easy to get angry with women who stay with their abusers, say, and mistake their predicament for weakness.

I get that. I get it. Totally. He thinks for a moment. I take your point. When I hear that Susanna went home and cried after the show, I would like to have known why, but she would see it as weak to tell me and I dont want her to feel that. He thinks again. You remember, we were put together on Good Morning Britain like an arranged marriage, and I think weve just got to know each other a lot better, and she sees a the upside of having these debates about sexism on air in real time, with me perhaps going on a little bit of a journey of discovery.

Morgans crusade against hypocrisy is, of course, somewhat undermined by the fact that he admits to being a total hypocrite himself Of course! All journalists are! For anyone looking for a reliable rule to explain his wild enthusiasms and fierce feuds, the secret, he says, is really quite simple. Im a human being. If people are nice to me, Im nice to them. An afterthought crosses his mind, and he laughs. Donald Trumps actually pretty similar.