Britain’s ITV accepted the firebrand interviewer’s resignation after he was the subject of more than 40,000 complaints to the UK’s media watchdog.A Twitter campaign against Morgan, 55, prompted the wave of complaints after he said he did “not believe a word” of the Duchess of Sussex’s interview with Oprah Winfrey.Meghan revealed that she had “methodical” suicidal thoughts while pregnant with baby Archie in the two-hour interview.An ITV statement said: “Following discussions with ITV, Piers Morgan has decided now is the time to leave Good Morning Britain. ITV has accepted this decision and has nothing further to add.”Morgan tried to retract his statement yesterday, but even his co-host Alex Beresford was furious, calling him “diabolical” for walking off the set when he was challenged.Morgan stood up and said, “I’m done with this, sorry, can’t do this, see you later” and walked off the TV set.Under pressure from the tens of thousands of complaints, senior executives had asked Morgan to apologise to Megan on air according to The Sun. But he reportedly refused and instead staged the dramatic walk out, ending his six-year stint on the show.And it was understood other staff on the GMB set, as well as Beresford, were upset at Morgan’s comments.He did however try to clarify his remarks, saying that he did not believe Meghan’s claims in the interview in general, rather than specifically about whether she wanted to take her own life.“I still have serious concerns about the veracity of a lot of what she said,” he said.“But let me just state for the record on my position on mental illness and on suicide.“On mental illness and suicide these are clearly extremely serious things and should be taken extremely seriously and if someone is feeling that way they should get the treatment and the help they need every time. Every time.”“It’s not for me to question if she felt suicidal, I am not in her mind and that is for her to say.”Morgan added that he could not believe that Meghan did not receive help from the Royal Family, or senior staff, if she went to them with those concerns. His exit comes as a new television station GB News, run by former Sky News Australia boss Angelos Frangopolous, was about to start broadcasting from as early as this month.The presenter, who previously replaced Larry King on CNN in America and won The Apprentice on US television where he became friends with former US President Donald Trump, has been tipped to move to the new station.Beresford, the ITV weather presenter, told Morgan during Tuesday’s: “I understand you’ve got a personal relationship with Meghan Markle, or had one, and she cut you off.“She’s entitled to cut you off if she wants to. Has she said anything about you since she cut you off? I don’t think she has but yet you continue to trash her.”Some claimed that he may have orchestrated the walk off drama to create headlines before a move. But his glass jaw reaction, where he said he wouldn’t take the criticism from Beresford appeared on his own show, appeared to be genuine.Morgan has held a grudge against Meghan for cutting him out of her life after she met Prince Harry.The TV host had a drink with Meghan at his local pub in Kensington, west London, on the same night she met the Duke of Sussex for the first time.Since then he has complained that Meghan had “ghosted” him and became her fiercest critic, fanning the flame of negative coverage towards her to his 7.7 million Twitter followers.Morgan said last year he had gone too far with his attacks on Meghan.“Have I taken things a bit too far? Probably,” he told The Sunday Times.“Do I think that will govern and temper how I talk about them going forward? Absolutely.”He had previously labelled the couple “repulsive, deluded narcissistic tools” and called Prince Harry “the hostage”.Morgan previously edited left-leaning British newspaper The Daily Mirror for almost a decade in the 1990s. He infamously planned to send a Mirror-sponsored tank to Berlin to “invade” the offices of German newspaper Bild during the Euro ‘96 soccer championships.Mr Morgan also planned to send a British Spitfire plane to drop copies of the Mirror front page over the pitch where England and Germany were due to clash.But backlash over his war-inspired front page forced him to abort the plans.Good Morning Britain regularly pulled in more than 1.5 million viewers and Morgan’s comments on the show generated daily headlines on newspaper websites. stephen.drill@news.co.uk
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