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The Independent UK
The Independent UK
Lifestyle
Ellie Harrison

Ricky Gervais makes dig at Piers Morgan over Taliban interview: ‘I’ve lost all respect for them’

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Ricky Gervais has made a dig at Piers Morgan over the TalkTV presenter’s interview with the Taliban spokesman.

Posting to Twitter on Tuesday 10 May, Morgan revealed that he had sat down and spoken with Dr Suhail Shaheen.

“TONIGHT... EXCLUSIVE… I will interview the official Taliban spokesman,” the controversial broadcaster wrote on Twitter.

The series, titled Uncensored, branded the conversation “unmissable” in a poster promoting the segment.

Responding to a Twitter user who asked “what do you think about @piersmorgan interviewing the taliban tonight? #disgusting?”, comedian Gervais wrote: “I’ve lost all respect for them.”

At the time of writing, his tweet has 47,900 likes.

(Twitter)

In the interview, Morgan questioned Shaheen on the state of the Afghan economy and called out his hypocrisy on girls’ education.

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 actor Brian Cox.

On Sunday (11 May), Steve Coogan, in character as Alan Partridge, made a joke at the expense of Uncensored’s low viewing figures at the Bafta TV Awards.

Coogan’s joke came in the wake of Morgan’s viewing rating slumping just days after the series launched.

The first episode of Uncensored, featuring Trump, had a special introduction from Gervais.

The comedian appeared briefly to wish Morgan “good luck” with his new series, adding: “The producers of Piers Morgan’s new show contacted me and asked me if I’d like to be a guest. I said, ‘Definitely not.’”

He added: “They said, ‘Would you mind doing a quick video wishing him luck?’ I said, ‘Do I have to mean it?’ They said, ‘No’. I said, ‘Good luck’.”

Here’s what we discovered after watching TalkTV, which comes from Rupert Murdoch, for one week.

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