Who Was Piers Morgan Named After?
In the U.K., TV presenter Piers Morgan had a lengthy and at times controversial journey to becoming one of the loudest and most trusted voices in conservative news media. As Business Insider reports, Morgan, who is best known stateside for having an uncomfortable fixation on Meghan Markle — whom he frequently criticizes in public, even losing his job at "Good Morning Britain" as a result — has a history of being unceremoniously fired from positions of power.
In particular, Morgan is a brazen rule-breaker. And yet, the British firebrand remains one of the most recognizable names in media, on both sides of the pond. As Bill Hagerty, editor of the British Journalism Review, put it, "He will always make spectacular cock-ups but he's like a rubber ball, he bounces back it seems from almost everything." Love him or hate him, you can't deny there's only one Piers Morgan. And this is where his rather infamous moniker originated.
Clearly his parents knew Piers Morgan was destined to be somebody
In keeping with his outsized personality, Piers Morgan was named after another famous Brit, the racing car driver Piers Courage, according to BBC. However, the connection isn't quite as impressive as it appears on the surface since Courage competed in 29 World Championship Grand Prix events but only garnered two podium finishes overall (as Digital Spy confirms, he was a brewery heir, too, so racing might have been more of a hobby). Moreover, Morgan's real, full name is Piers Stefan O'Meara, but he changed it to Piers Stefan Pughe-Morgan, perhaps because it sounded a bit fancier? He did have a massive "Great Gatsby"-themed 50th after all, as Business Insider notes, at which Morgan appeared as Gatsby himself.
Evidently, the controversial pundit always fancied himself as a somebody, which is reportedly why he took Meghan Markle "ghosting" him so hard. As the man himself recalled in a 1994 interview with The Independent, "I became the friend of the stars, a rampant egomaniac," while working as a gossip columnist, admitting, "Madonna, Stallone, Bowie, Paul McCartney, hundreds of them. It was shameless, as they didn't even know me from Adam." As his former editor, Kelvin MacKenzie, told Business Insider, "Nobody had ever done that before. It was clear to me that what he had to say was far more interesting than some pop star."
For better or worse, Morgan ensured that, before too long, everybody knew his name.