The former tabloid editor's career has been pronounced extinct many times - but, suddenly, he's joined an elite list of British stars. Jasper Gerard reports Ashameless chancer, Piers Morgan; and that is the verdict of his friends. When he was sacked as editor of the Daily Mirror in 2004, following publication of faked pictures showing British squaddies apparently torturing Iraqis, his critics felt he should take the opportunity to spend more time with his conscience. | |  | | Piers the charmer: 'He has a form book longer than the check-in queues at Terminal 5' |
With customary generosity, Private Eye hailed the "End of the Piers Show". Instead, Morgan transformed himself from wannabe to highly wanted television celebrity - on both sides of the Atlantic. He now joins Simon Cowell and Anne Robinson in an elite British triumvirate of genuine transatlantic stars. The ex-showbiz reporter had dabbled in chat shows and current affairs before he found his true metier, as a monumentally rude host on Britain's Got Talent and America's Got Talent. The latter earned him a spot on the American version of The Celebrity Apprentice - despite possessing an ego several sizes up from the host, Donald Trump. Last month he won it, raising more money than his 13 fellow contestants combined. Days later, his toe-curling GQ interview with Nick Clegg hit the news stands. When the Lib Dem leader was enticed into a bold admission that, in his single days, he slept with ''no more than 30" women he was transformed into "Nick Cleggover". On Sunday night, Morgan appeared - or rather his computer graphically enhanced image appeared - on the new animated satirical show Headcases. And, this Saturday, he'll be back dishing out the insults on the new series of Britain's Got Talent. Now, far from attracting opprobrium, Morgan is increasingly indulged as a potential national treasure. "He is a force of nature," smiles his old mucker Roger Alton, former editor of the Observer. "His power of re-invention is staggering. And he will always push things to the edge, which people like. They know he is a master of b------t, but he is always greeted very warmly, always as 'Piers'." We've learnt there is no point in chastising the bounder: whether publishing snaps of the former Countess Spencer Victoria Lockwood leaving a detox clinic or giving us the headline "Achtung surrender!" before an England-Germany football match, Morgan has always done exactly as he wants with a lethal charm. He seems to bring out the Dick Emery in virtually everyone: "Ooh, you are awful, but I like you..." After publication of his rip-roaringly indiscreet diaries, The Insider - detailing how Tony Blair found time between running the country and going to war to meet Morgan 58 times - one might have assumed that no politician would go near him. Yet when I ran into him at a party recently he was speculating, with apparent sobriety, that Gordon Brown might invite him into the Cabinet. If Morgan sees any contradiction between his high-minded, Left-wing, anti-war rhetoric on programmes such as Question Time and his earlier incarnation as a low-down, muck-raking, get-on-your-bike Thatcherite, he hides it well. This inability to feel embarrassment is a useful skill. Having made his reputation as a peddler of scandal, he left his wife, with whom he has three children, for a tabloid colleague. Today, he acts as armrest for the Telegraph's Celia Walden. Morgan, 43, rose to prominence as editor of the Sun's Bizarre column, being photographed glad-handing celebrities, intimating he was best pals with Brad, Robbie, Nicole et al. Few had any idea who this loud and effusive young man was; but such details never fazed Morgan. Rupert Murdoch spotted his blithe talent and appointed him editor of the News of the World, aged just 28. Ambitious for more, Morgan abandoned his patron to edit the Mirror, and since then he's been irrepressible: death notices on his career went up as far back as 2000 when he bought £67,000 of shares tipped in his own paper. Two Mirror business reporters were convicted of conspiracy, while Scarlet Piers Pimpernel escaped. It was not his finest hour, but the Private Eye sobriquet "Piers Moron" could hardly be sillier: just look at the man's survival skills. One might not approve of Morgan, but one should never underestimate him. When he published a photo of Jeremy Clarkson being solicitous towards a woman thought not to be Mrs Clarkson, the Top Gear host biffed him. He later chortled that Clarkson had unwittingly bought his old flat, and as Morgan still had a key, he intended to pay a visit. Piers Stefan Pugh-Morgan was an unlikely candidate for tabloid infamy. Thought to be named after the gentleman racing driver Piers Courage, he was raised near Lewes, East Sussex. He was one when his father died; his mother later married Glynne Pugh-Morgan who Morgan credits with doing a ''great job" as step-father. A well-to-do blonde who remembers the teenage Morgan speaks wistfully of him as "posh and double-barrelled", but Morgan prefers to emphasise his relatively humble roots, such as his comprehensive education (prep school until 13, however), and the fact that his parents ran a pub. I sense that he slightly regrets his tabloid excess. Before being sacked as Mirror editor he tried to take it - disastrously - "oop market". Indeed, occasional attempts to recast himself as un homme serieux will always be hampered by a form book longer than the check-in queues at Terminal 5. In particular, his decision to publish those photos of British squaddies was exposed as a major lapse in judgment. He compounded the blunder by claiming the images were still indicative of general abuse. As fears grew of Iraqi revenge attacks on British soldiers, the Mirror finally wielded its axe. But like so many sinister life forms lurking in the undergrowth, having his head cut off merely encouraged Morgan to grow into a still larger poppy. After his Apprentice triumph, a friend sent a text expressing hope that this "might give you an iota of self-belief". Morgan, marginally cockier than Idi Amin, enjoyed the joke. In the wake of the Clegg rumpus, the same friend sent another asking how Morgan was coping. The reply? "In Malibu about to interview Pamela Anderson. Life's tough..." Oh yes, the apprentice celebrity has certainly landed the job - that of full-time celebrity. | 
