Ricky Gervais has hit out at Piers Morgan after he interviewed the official Taliban spokesman on his TalkTV show Uncensored.
The former Good Morning Britain presenter interviewed Suhail Shaheen on Tuesday evening in a conversation that was branded “unmissable” in a promotion for the segment.
Taking to Twitter ahead of the show, Piers shared: “TONIGHT... EXCLUSIVE… I will interview the official Taliban spokesman.”
In the interview, Piers clashed with the Taliban official spokesman, who claimed that Afghan women do not have to wear the burqa and compared the face covering to masks worn in the UK to protect against Covid.
After a Twitter user asked comedian Ricky Gervais about his thoughts on the broadcast interview, he instead joked about the decision.
The Twitter user asked the After Life star: “What do you think about Piers Morgan interviewing the Taliban tonight? #disgusting?”
Ricky replied: “I’ve lost all respect for them,” in a post that has already gained 65,000 likes.
In the interview, Morgan questioned Shaheen on the state of the Afghan economy and called out his hypocrisy on girls’ education.
At one point in the interview, Shaheen compared the burqa to Covid face mask, saying: “What you're seeing you've gotten from media reports, which are not correct, their property are safe, secure.
“There is no problem with that. About the veil, it is not only in Afghanistan, all over the Islamic world.
“You may have it in UK, that Muslim woman wearing also in UK, about the only opening the eyes, you many are using the mask, there is no problem. It is the same as the mask. The mask is not draconian but the veil is draconian?”
Shaheen has appeared on other UK programmes in the past, including Good Morning Britain.
Morgan’s previous guests have included Donald Trump, Sharon Osbourne and Succession star Brian Cox.
This comes after Alan Partridge took aim at Piers during his BAFTAs speech on Sunday.
Appearing in the pre-recorded clip as his bumbling presenter Alan Partridge, Steve Coogan said: “Sadly, I can’t be with you because I’m on a nationwide tour, performing to an audience bigger than Piers Morgan gets on the actual telly. But the good thing with Piers is that it doesn’t bother him.”
This comes after Piers suffered a setback as the ratings for his new TalkTV programme plummeted after just one week.
* This headline has been edited after publication to make clear that Ricky Gervais was joking about the Taliban interview.
