Comedian Adam Hills had a sneaking suspicion his appearance on Good Morning Britain would be awkward.
He was right.
Before co-host Susanna Reid could even introduce Hills and his The Last Leg colleague Alex Brooker to the show, Piers Morgan was telling the comic he “had a bit of beef”.
First, some context: Said “beef” started in October 2018, when Morgan tweeted a paparazzi photo of Daniel Craig (as in Bond, James Bond) walking down the street in New York, carrying his newborn baby in a baby carrier.
“Oh 007.. not you as well?!!!,” Morgan wrote alongside the hashtag #emasculatedBond.
His suggestion that a father carrying his baby was emasculating didn’t go over well with many on Twitter… Including Adam Hills, who responded to say “Oh f*** off Piers you mercenary. You’ll honestly say anything for ratings/cash/views.”
Now that we’re all up to speed, let us run through the live TV argument the pair had, while Reid and Brooker awkwardly sat by.
“Here’s your chance to show some humility and regret the tone because I always thought we got on well and then I pick up Twitter and get abused by you,” Morgan said. “Now you are on my show helping me get ratings, cash and views.”
Hills responded by saying he does not believe Morgan actually holds all the controversial opinions he claims to.
"Firstly, in your original tweet you used the hashtag 'emasculated', so you were calling into question [Craig's] masculinity for looking after his own child, which I think there are several issues with.
"Secondly, I know you Piers - most of this is an act. There's one of two things going on: Either you are a terribly odious, horrible human being who believes everything he says on TV, or you're pretending to be a terribly odious, horrible human being in order to be paid."
Morgan, unsurprisingly, "took issue" with that.
"You would find on this show that my apparently odious views are shared by 90% of the wider British public. Do you think The Last Leg in a way is not representative of the wider public, but is just a bunch of smartarse snowflake liberals all laughing at people who have the more mainstream views?" he asked.
Hills responded: "Is that worse than being a halfarse snowflake liberal but pretending now to be? Which is what you do."
Reid and Brooker then both intervened, saying they felt like they were in the middle of a "personal row" - probably because they... were.
The rest of the interview went smoothly enough (Morgan even admitted he liked Hills' show), but then Hills couldn't help but bring their tension up again. You see, Good Morning Britain had accidentally showed a graphic that dated his October 2018 tweet as 2019.
"I'm assuming it's still going to be appropriate on that date [in 2019]," he said.
As the segment concluded, Morgan laughed and raised his fist.
"We are now going to have a fight. Let's go to [GMB presenter] Lorraine Kelly while I beat the crap out of Adam Hills."
Everyone laughed... but in a way that said: 'Get us off air this is so bloody uncomfortable.'
Top Comments
If 90% of the British public think that a man looking after his own child is emasculating, then Britain has some pretty big problems. And, honestly, pretending or not, he is a horrible, odious human being.
Well, Adam’s not wrong, is he? Piers makes a living being a dick. Frankly, I’m surprised that Jeremy Clarkson is the only one who’s thumped him.
I'm not suprised at all. There are many people who make a living from being contraversial