Holidays are meant to be a time for rest and relaxation, yet Piers Morgan seems to have returned from his summer break more fired up than ever.
The Good Morning Britain presenter gave both barrels to a guest who was making controversial claims about homosexuality on this morning’s programme.
Christian counsellor Dr Michael Davidson told Piers and his co-presenter Susanna Reid that homosexuality is “sinful” and that it can be “cured”.
But angry Piers was having none of it, labelling his guest an “old bigot”.
Dr Davidson, who’s been married for 35 years and has two children, explained that he himself had once been a practising homosexual, but insisted that “counselling, prayer and psychotherapy helped me to turn away from it”.
He added: “I believe people are not born gay; that they come into homosexual feelings and it’s something, in some cases, that’s reversible if they want to make that trajectory in their life.”
Sat on the sofa beside him was Josh Parry, a journalist for the Liverpool Echo who claimed that a local religious group – the Mountain of Fire and Miracles Ministries – had told him his gay urges were biologically wrong and that prayer therapy would help.
“I think the overwhelming feeling I had was one of disappointment,” Parry told the presenters. “This is happening 20 minutes from where I live in Liverpool.
“I think it’s offensive, to be honest. I think it has a genuine possibility of causing harm to people.”
Read more: Paul O’Grady’s ‘fury’ as Blind Date scenes with first ever gay contestants cut
And Piers clearly agreed. Slamming Dr Davidson’s “wacky-baccy science”, the married father-of-four raged: “You think [Parry] wasn’t born gay; he got corrupted by these urges and now needs to be cured by Saint Michael, who’s here to rid the world of the scourge of homosexuality.
“I say shut up, you old bigot!”
And viewers at home had their say, too. One tweeted: “People like this man makes me sick. Short-sighted bigot.”
Another wrote: “Well done, Piers. What a load of rubbish that man spoke #loveislove.”
But Piers’s way of thinking wasn’t unanimous, and one viewer commented: “Not everyone feels comfortable with homosexuality. [Dr Davidson] has a view. We live in a democracy.”
Read more: ‘Coward!’ Piers Morgan slams race faker Rachel Dolezal’s TV no-show
Last week, Piers tweeted a picture of himself enjoying a night out with Susanna Reid and fellow presenter Richard Bacon at “a gay bar in Soho”.
The comment provoked criticism on Twitter, with some fans suggesting there was no need to specify that it was a gay bar – just calling it “a bar” would’ve sufficed.
But Piers poured scorn on the accusations, telling viewers on yesterday’s GMB: “I didn’t know you couldn’t call gay bars ‘gay bars’ any more, even though it was marketed as a gay bar.
“My apologies – apparently, the gay bar now identifies as a non-binary gender-neutral bar, and therefore I inadvertently offended the gay bar by calling it a ‘gay bar’.”