Piers Morgan returned to his co-hosting role at Good Morning Britain today and many viewers were delighted he’s back.
The outspoken presenter has been absent for nearly three weeks, spending some of that time in America.
Despite the time off having super early starts, he admitted he hadn’t been rejuvenated by his break. He was battling “man flu” and sounded very bunged-up as he spoke.
He said: “We’ve had a tweet from a viewer saying it sounds like I have man flu coming but I already have it, I’ve had it for the last five days.”
His colleague Charlotte Hawkins said he “didn’t need to rush back” as Susanna Reid criticised him for coming in full of germs.
“You are going to give everyone in the studio man flu now,” she told him.
Piers said after almost three weeks off GMB, he couldn’t stay away any longer as he’s been getting inundated with tweets from his fans begging him to return.
“I’ve manned up and soldiered on to come in. I couldn’t keep the British public waiting any longer so here I am with man flu,” he said.
He added that he also had to return as Susanna was getting too used to “being Queen Bee.”
“Goodness me, you’re back. I thought you’d left for good as you’d been gone so long,” she told him at the start of the show.
“You sound excited about that,” he replied, “like you’d like to go back to being Queen Bee without an alpha male.”
“Ain’t going to happen!” he added.
It was clear he wasn’t quite at his best though as he tried to question their first guests and was interrupted by fits of coughs.
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“Excuse me, I have man flu!” he told them.
He soon found his form though, and was up to taking on American guests over gun control, blasting them for not changing their laws in light of another mass shooting in which children were killed.
He got particularly heated with one guest speaking via Washington and ended up shouting at him to “shut up” because he was speaking “nonsense” about Europe having a worse gun problem than America.
He also felt well enough to tease weatherman Alex Beresford about his forthcoming appearance on Dancing On Ice.
He told him referring to Charlotte’s short-lived time on Strictly: “You’re skating on thin ice. Did you not learn anything from Charlotte’s experience?”
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Viewers were shocked when Piers was suddenly absent from the show two-and-a-half-weeks ago, replaced by former This Morning presenter Richard Madeley.
Some said they have switched channels because they couldn’t watch the show without Piers. So they were delighted to see him back when they woke up today.