PIERS Morgan has slammed the “cowardly” TV network that forced Sharon Osbourne to quit The Talk after she insisted he wasn’t a racist.
The journalist today hit out at CBS for refusing to support Sharon, 68, after she defended him against co-star Sheryl Underwood’s accusations that his loathing of Meghan Markle has been racially motivated.
Follow our Piers Morgan live blog for the latest on his GMB exit…
Writing in his column for Mail Online Piers, 55, said it smacked of hypocrisy, and pointed to Underwood defending comedian George Lopez on The Talk in 2017 after he told a studio audience: “There’s still two rules in the f*****g Latino family: Don’t marry somebody black and don’t park in front of our house.”
Piers continued to describe the incident, which saw a black female audience member stand up and walk out after sticking her finger up at Lopez.
He recounted: “Underwood, herself a black woman, told (The Talk) panel: ‘Once you throw up the bird twice and you are in the first few rows, you have now inserted yourself into the show and it depends on the mood of the comic on how they handle it. I am pro-black female, but if you put yourself into it, you goin’ get lit up. I would’ve said: ‘b****, that’s why nobody’s going to marry you cause you talking in my show.’
“It’s hard to imagine a more shameful thing to say on national television but Ms Underwood was applauded for it by the audience and suffered no disciplinary action from her CBS bosses …
“Yet here we are … and the same Sheryl Underwood’s sat back and watched Sharon Osbourne get driven off the show for disagreeing with her, after deliberately rattling her cage with a fake racism slur against me.
“It’s an absolute disgrace and given how Underwood defended HER friend George Lopez when he DID say racist things that were caught on camera, it’s disgustingly hypocritical of her.
“As is the behaviour of CBS, the Cowardly Broadcasting System, who’ve so pathetically bowed to the woke mob illiberally baying for blood like a bunch of crazed language-policing fascists.”
The Celeb Report revealed last week that Sharon has told CBS they’ll have to pay her tens of millions if they want to force her to quit.
Sharon issued a lengthy apology on Twitter for her row with Underwood, and said she panicked over the suggestion she might be racist.
But former co-star and American actress Holly Robinson Peete later alleged Sharon got her fired for being “too ghetto”.
Sharon is also alleged to have made racial slurs about Asian-American co-host Julie Chen.
Sharon, wed to rocker Ozzy, 72, has denied all the claims but The Talk was put on hiatus by network CBS while they are investigated.
And Sharon has insisted she will not step down, telling pals she will only leave if she gets an eight-figure pay-off.
