Shortly after Larry King’s death was announced on Saturday, January 23, Piers Morgan was criticized on social media for Twitter’s tribute to the veteran journalist.
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Initially, Morgan simply shared a photo of King and the words, “RIP Larry King, 87. A television legend.” But he followed the post with a tweet that was classified as “rude”, “in bad taste” and “disrespectful”.
O tweet made reference to the disagreement between the two, which started after Morgan received the title of King on CNN in 2011, transforming “Larry King Live”, presented by King from 1985 until 2010, into “Piers Morgan Live”. It also included an excavation at King’s multiple weddings.
“Larry King was a hero of mine until we fought after I replaced him on CNN and he said my show was’ how to watch his mother-in-law fall off a cliff in his new Bentley,” began Morgan’s second tweet. “(He has been married 8 times, so he is a mother-in-law expert) But he was a brilliant presenter and masterful TV interviewer.”
Twitter was so irritated by the post that Morgan’s name soon began to become a trend on the platform, as users criticized him for turning the death of the TV icon into an opportunity for self-promotion and insults.
“I’m not surprised that he fell out with you, look at you trying to gain 5 minutes of fame through previous associations,” wrote a user in the comments.
“Who did this the day someone died ???” asked another.
Many of Morgan’s media colleagues were also offended.
BET host Marc Lamont told Morgan that his tweet was “in bad taste” and asked, “Why take personal photos at a time like this? Just say something nice. Or don’t say anything. There is always[s] This one.”
The writer Dave Grzybowski commented, “what a stupid and disrespectful tweet.”
Others dragged Morgan out of being selfish and inappropriate. Some of the fans of the “Good Morning Britain” co-host, however, defended him.
“This is honest and you still found a way to keep it respectful. I appreciate that. I hate false things,” one person wrote in the comments.
Morgan agreed with the compliment.
“Me too,” he wrote. “Larry hated that I replaced him on CNN and never made a secret of it, which I found very sad because he was one of my heroes – but I still think he was an excellent presenter and one of the greatest on TV of all time.”
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“Larry King Live” was CNN’s “most watched and longest running program,” according to data collected by Wikipedia.
“Piers Morgan Live”, in turn, was canceled due to the steady decline in ratings in 2014, just three years after its debut.
King – who has won two Peabody awards, an Emmy and almost a dozen Cable ACE awards over his nearly 50-year career – died after being hospitalized in Los Angeles for complications from Covid-19.
He had battled several health problems in recent years, including heart attacks, stroke, diabetes and lung cancer. King was 87 years old.