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Piers Morgan
He's been punched by Jeremy Clarkson and kicked by Kate Moss. Newspaper editor turned tv presenter Piers Morgan isn't afraid to tell it like he sees it and doesn't worry about the fall out.
Morgan started his career in UK tabloid journalism. Picked from obscurity on a local paper to become showbiz editor at the Sun he went on to be the youngest editor ever of the UK's biggest selling Sunday paper, The News of The World, at the age of 28. Two years later he became editor of The Daily Mirror where he stayed until 2004 when he was sacked following his decision to publish photos of British troops apparently abusing Iraqi prisoners of War which later turned out to have been faked.
Since then he has published his memoirs and reinvented himself as tv presenter, chat show host and reality tv talent-show judge in both the UK and the US.
- His ruthless tactics on US Celebrity Apprentice, prompted Donald Trump, known for his hardnosed business practices to call him "evil". Announcing Morgan the winner, Trump said: "You're a vicious guy, I've seen it... You're tough, you're smart, you're probably brilliant, I'm not sure, you're certainly not diplomatic but you did an amazing job and you beat the hell out of everybody."
- Morgan believes that: "The more shameless you are as an interviewer, the better the interview. I have no shame about asking anyone anything." Perhaps that's why he managed to get Nick Clegg, the leader of the liberal democrat party in the UK, to reveal the number of women he had slept with on national tv.
- Four years after ridiculing George Bush as an 'idiot' for falling off a Segway, Morgan fell off a Segway and broke three ribs.
- Morgan loves waging feuds, "they get me going and make me perform better. On newspapers, every day is a feud. All editors need one to get by." His adversaries have included Jeremy Clarkson, Jonathan Ross and Ian Hislop.
- He says his public persona polarizes people: "half love me, half want to kill me" but in real life he claims he is less inflammatory.
- Shortly after taking the job as Editor of the Mirror, he was forced to apologise after causing outrage with his headline "Achtung Surrender!" the day before England's Euro 96 clash with Germany. The story also featured pictures of England team-mates Paul Gascoigne and Stuart Pearce in authentic Second World War soldier's helmets.
- Under his editorship, The Mirror campaigned against war in Iraq despite losing huge numbers of readers in the process.
- He was furious when the Mirror lost a long-running case against supermodel Naomi Campbell, who claimed coverage of her drug addiction treatment invaded her privacy, famously saying: "This is a good day for lying, drug-abusing prima donnas who want to have their cake with the media and the right to then shamelessly guzzle it with their Cristal champagne."
- He calls the discovery of global singing sensation Susan Boyle on Britain's Got Talent one of the most surprising & inspiring moments of his life.
- Morgan says that after he was sacked, he learnt that the best quality he has is a very thick skin.
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