Comedian and activist Kate Smurthwaite claims she was "censored" during her appearance on Piers Morgan's show Uncensored.
She says producers warned her not to get 'too personal' with the host and repeat previous criticisms of his "obsession" with Meghan Markle.
However, Piers has denied this and said in a tweet: "I just checked and nobody tried to censor you - we don’t censor guests, that’s the point of the show."
TalkTV was also contacted for comment.
Last night I was a guest on Piers Morgan’s Talk TV show UNCENSORED. As a left-wing political comedian, I do it for the money and because I like to treat the viewers to a well-reasoned counterargument.
The producer pencilled the slot into my diary last week and rang in the morning to let me know what topics would be discussed and ask what my views were. Standard procedure.
After their morning meeting, I had a confirmation call too. They were looking forward to having me on. The only thing was…they’d like me not to mention a couple of the things I had said in our earlier conversation. A remarkable request for a show that is literally called “uncensored”.
You’re probably wondering what they didn’t want me to say. The topic under discussion was Meghan Markle. That’s what most of his shows are about in case, like 99.9% of the British public, you weren’t watching.
They didn’t want me to get “too personal” with Morgan. They didn’t want me criticising or seeking to explain his "vindictive obsession" with her.
The main thing they didn’t want me to say was: “You know that no matter how many hours you spend sl*****g her off, she’s still not going to s**g you?”. True. Funny. Insightful. What’s not to love?
I don’t blame the producer. The job of producing a show like this is 95% about “censoring”. By which I mean selecting which voices and viewpoints will be aired and hence, inevitably, which ones won’t. I might graciously use the term “editing”.
In my opinion, the issue is that Piers, and his peers, on Talk TV, GB News and, across the pond, Fox News cry “censorship” any time an editorial decision goes against their point of view.
On the same show, Morgan was using the new c-word to describe schools which have taken To Kill A Mockingbird off the English literature curriculum.
The book has not been burned in the streets, nor removed from libraries, students are not being rounded up and sent to prison camps for reading it. School children are simply not going to be forced to read it.
Surely a victory for their freedoms?
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Censorship, actual censorship, is a real human rights problem around the world. Voices like those of Ai Weiwei and Raif Badawi being silenced through prison sentences and state-sponsored violence. If the man had any idea what that was like he wouldn’t appropriate the word for his own editorial battles.
This makes Piers Morgan’s interest in free speech appear purely hypocritical, in my view. If, as he has subsequently claimed on Twitter, there was no effort to censor me, his producers would not have warned me beforehand to not get "too personal" with Piers when discussing the topic of Meghan.
I'd like to discuss his childish obsession with Markle. And then whilst I'm about it his nasty attitude towards some other celebrities and the way that the right wing media will cry censorship when it suits them and participate in the exact same thing when it doesn’t.
I’ve got plenty to say.
Mirror Online has contacted Piers' representative for further comment.
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