ITV chief executive Carolyn McCall has revealed that she fully believes Meghan Markle’s statements on mental health, which is at variance with the opinion of ITV presenter Piers Morgan on the matter.
Frank presenter Morgan, co-host of ITV’s “Good Morning Britain” breakfast program, suggested that he did not believe Markle’s statements during Monday’s edition of the program. During the interview with Oprah Winfrey, Markle said that she sometimes felt suicidal while part of the Royal Family and did not receive the support she needed, despite asking. “I don’t believe a word of what she says,” Morgan said on the program on Monday. “I wouldn’t believe it if she read me a weather report.”
Morgan left the set on Tuesday, while “Good Morning Britain” was being broadcast live after an altercation with meteorologist Alex Beresford, who called Morgan’s behavior “diabolical”.
Beresford said: “I understand that you don’t like Meghan Markle, you have made that very clear on this program several times. She has the right to interrupt you. Has she said anything about you since she interrupted you? I don’t think she has. But you continue to destroy it. “
Morgan left, saying, “Sorry. You can destroy me, man, but not on my own show. See you later.”
Then @alexberesfordTV defends Meghan in @gmb and criticize @piersmorgan for what he said about Meghan’s mental health.
Piers leaves the set.
Surely Piers knows that if you give, you have to be able to accept it?pic.twitter.com/gmoNjMxiQy– Chris Ship (@chrisshipitv) March 9, 2021
Morgan later returned to the program and said to Beresford: “What we need to do, Alex, is to talk to each other in a civilized manner, since we work on the same program, on the same team. Throwing yourself into a very personally derogatory monologue about one of your colleagues is probably not one of the best ways to do this. “
Speaking to the press during a financial results conference call on Tuesday, McCall said: “I totally believe what she said, that the most important thing about mental health that ITV does and that it is fully committed to is that we support, we get people to talk, we listen, we say that everyone has to listen and everyone has to believe, because that’s how you make people talk. Therefore, we are very committed to this. “
Mental health charity Mind said they were “disappointed” by Morgan’s comments about Markle.
– Mind (@MindCharity) March 8, 2021
“We work with Mind and CALM and the full range of health charities and will continue to do so,” added McCall. The executive said she had no opportunity to speak to Morgan alone.
“I didn’t speak to Piers, but I know Kevin Lygo [ITV managing director for media and entertainment] is talking to him regularly and has been doing it for the past few days, ”said McCall.
Referring to Beresford, McCall said: “Alex made a passionate and articulate statement. And it was a very noisy discussion that I think that nothing was made about it. I think one of the things I would like to emphasize is that ITV has a lot of voices and we try to represent a lot of voices on ITV every day. This is not an opinion. And so I think this is what happened this morning. “
TV Mindset, an initiative by the TV and film industry that helps freelancers deal with mental health problems, has also added its voice to the Morgan issue.
“Mental health is important,” tweeted The TV Mindset. “The life of black people still matters. And our intersections need more allies and protection than ever, as we certainly can’t count on corporations that claim to want to ‘make Britain speak’, but dismiss people when they finally have the courage to do so. “
Mental health issues. Black lives still matter. And our intersections need more allies and protection than ever, as we certainly can’t count on corporations that claim to want to “make Britain speak”, but dismiss people when they finally have the courage to do so.
– The TV mindset (@the_tv_mindset) March 8, 2021
“Get Britain Talking” is an ITV mental well-being initiative.