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July 19, 2022 - Uncensored - Piers Morgan
44:09
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Britain Burns on Hottest Day 00:09:42
At Piers Morgan Uncensored, tonight Britain burns and buckles on the hottest day in this country's recorded history.
If this is the new normal, as scientists say, well what the hell are we going to do about it?
One of these three people will be Britain's next Prime Minister, Richie Sunak, remains in the lead.
Who will make him sweat?
And should preaching Prince Harry keep his big nose out of US politics?
We'll debate that.
Would Elvis Presley have survived cancelled culture?
His wife Priscilla joins me live.
Good evening, I'm Piers Morgan on Censored World.
Welcome to Blow Torch Britain.
This is what a record-breaking heat wave actually looks like.
Flames tearing across parts of the capital, at least eight homes burned to the ground, nine major fires still raging as London Fire Brigade declares a major incident.
90 firefighters deployed to stop a wildfire engulfing this major road in Kent.
All across the country, people have sweltered while services have buckled or failed.
No trains out of King's Cross, London's biggest train station.
Travel bedlam up and down the country.
Rail companies urging people not to travel at all.
The official advice, to stay at home, it's not safe to come out.
A dramatic spike in calls to emergency services as fires gut homes and people fall seriously unwell in the heat.
Flights delayed over melting tarmac.
Even airfields built for jet engines no longer able to cope.
We used to say Britain basks in glorious summer sunshine.
Now it's Britain burns.
Parts of Lincolnshire hit 40.3 degrees today, 104.5 degrees Fahrenheit.
That's hotter than the Maldives, Ethiopia and Jamaica.
The simple fact is we're not prepared as a country for this kind of torrid temperature.
We know it's going to happen more often.
We know that more people will suffer and die as a result.
So what do we do about it?
Well I'm joined now by Jonathan Smith, Assistant Commissioner with the London Fire Brigade.
Well good evening to you.
Can you just bring me up to date Mr Smith on where we are with what is clearly a big crisis today?
Yeah so we declared a major incident about two o'clock this afternoon due to the sheer number of calls that we were receiving from the public within London.
We've never seen this level of call volume being received into our control room.
We've had a number of significant incidents spread right across the capital, right from major incidents where we've deployed over 100 firefighters to bring them under control through to much more lower level incidents, most of which have been driven by the heat wave that we've been going through and the fact that the ground is tinderbox dry.
So we've seen grassland and woodland fires in particular, but then that has of course impinged on some of our urban conurbations.
And we've seen firefighters working in extremely arduous conditions right across the capital.
And we've seen the same with our home county services as well who have also come under significant pressure.
We're urging really the public to think very carefully and moderate their behaviour over the course of the next 12 hours in particular, that they're not having barbecues in open parks and spaces, that they're being very careful when they're extinguishing cigarettes, that they're not leaving rubbish around, particularly broken glass that can reflect light and then cause a spark.
I should say that we have been able to respond to every incident that has come into our control room, but we have seen the brigade placed under unprecedented pressure, which was why we kicked in our major incident protocols, which then stood up a lot of our multi-agency arrangements with the Metropolitan Police, the London Ambulance Services, local government and the Mayor of London to make sure that we're ready to deal with what the next six, 12 and 24 hours bring.
Well you and your teams are doing a fantastic job in very difficult circumstances.
To those, and there are many of them on social media today, trying to play down this kind of heat, trying to play down the warnings that have been given, what is your message to them?
Well our message is that this is what was once regarded as a once-in-a-generation type incident.
We are now seeing time and time again and much more regularly.
Obviously the heat that we've experienced today and some of those temperatures around 40 or 41 degrees is unprecedented but we are now starting to really factor in the impact of climate change in terms of all of our strategic planning because we need to make sure that firefighters are trained, equipped and prepared to deal with the challenges that we know climate change is bringing whether it's the significant heat related issues we face today or whether it's wide area flooding which is another result of climate change.
This is a clear and present threat and all of the emergency services are now having to make sure that we've got the right plans in place so that we're ready to go when these incidents happen again in the future as we know sadly that they're going to.
Assistant Commissioner, thank you very much indeed.
I hope you've got a busy night and good luck to you and all your teams.
Thank you very much.
Well let's pick up on all this with tonight's Piers Pack, talk to me contributor Esther Kraku and President of the National Union of Students Larissa Kennedy along with journalist Mark Day from Sydney who says today's British weather is nothing compared to some of the extremes they've been having in Australia and Nico Ramirez, Part ranger in Death Valley in California, which holds a record for the hottest place on earth, recording 57 degrees Celsius or 134 Fahrenheit back in July 1913, and environmentalist and father de Boris Johnson.
Stanley Johnson, to welcome to all of you a big pack for a big day and a big crisis.
Let me start, if I can, with Mark Day, the former minister of the Australian.
You're over there in Sydney.
I was in Sydney recently Mark, and it rained every single day.
I was a all day, every day.
It carried on raining ever since, I think, and was raining for much of the time before.
So clearly a lot of climactic change going on around the world in different ways, but what Australia has had for a very long time is sustained periods of this kind of heat.
What is your message really for Britain as we now start to experience what you guys have had for a long time?
My message is that it'll be hot next summer and it'll rain next winter.
You know climate change is very important.
No doubt about that.
In fact, I was rather proud of myself writing for the SUN, McCollum.
I didn't mention climate change.
But that's what this is all about.
It's getting hotter and it'll continue to get hotter.
We've got to get used to it.
We've got to know how to handle it.
And in Australia, we're well trained at that.
Well you are and I think that's a key lesson for us here actually.
We seem to be completely useless at being able to deal with this because frankly we're not used to it.
What is the best advice?
No, that's right.
And look I've been in London in 29 degrees and it was stonkering.
You know, it was worse in 29 degrees in London than it is in 39 degrees in Australia.
You know, you're just, you're not set up for it.
We are because we live with it.
And I mean, that's the message.
You've got to learn to live with it because it ain't going away, mate.
No, it certainly isn't.
Let's go to Nico Ramirez, Park Ranger, Death Valley National Park.
It's been 120 degrees for the last several weeks, but that's almost a cool, cool period for you, Mr. Ramirez.
You are renowned around the world for having the highest temperatures.
When you see what's happening throughout Europe and now in the UK at the moment, what do you think of it?
What do you make of the climate change debate?
And what's your view about this from Death Valley?
Good evening to you, Pierce.
Afternoon here in Death Valley.
That's a really good question.
So we live with hot temperatures all the time.
And really what I can say is one of the biggest things we push here is we promote safety.
So staying safe, we have a number of measures and information that we give out to visitors that come to visit Death Valley because one of the reasons they're here is to sort of experience the heat of the desert because the heat really is one of the reasons that make Death Valley special.
So listening to your authorities and what they say about heat safety is really important.
Here at Death Valley, we do a lot of those same things when we're hitting high temperatures.
We're doing things like staying indoors, not spending a certain amount of time.
We have a heat safety plan, which is really important that we follow depending on the heat temperatures are.
There's a certain amount of work we can do outside versus how much time we should spend inside to stay safe.
And if it's too hot, we cease that work all completely and we stay indoors.
Just like extreme temperatures where it's cold, we hibernate in the summer.
We stay indoors in the AC and we encourage people to stay in their AC vehicles and also just not push themselves or go any further.
You've obviously seen the direct impact of very extreme heat on a regular basis.
How deadly can it be?
And there are some people who just don't seem to take it very seriously.
Yeah, so as the last speaker was saying, we live with it.
So one way that we do that and we manage that is we acclimatize to it.
So we live here.
It takes our bodies a little bit of time to acclimatize to that.
But when it's really hot, pushing your bodies outside of a limit on what you're not used to is not something you should move forward.
So we promote safety and caution first foremost so that we're not putting ourselves in situations.
So acclimatizing, avoiding the heat, staying indoors.
We have two, we have redundant cooling systems.
We have swamp cooling system, which uses evaporative cooling and we have AC so that we have backup just in case of a situation.
Climate Crisis and Political Inaction 00:14:54
See, I think that's interesting because we just don't, we don't have, I mean, I've got a place in California myself, and we just don't have that kind of infrastructure.
You know, it's not embedded into British life because we're just so unused to this kind of temperature.
Mr. Ramirez, thank you very much for joining me.
I really appreciate it.
Stanley Johnson, first of all, good evening to you.
Good evening.
Good evening.
You've been campaigning about climate change for a long time.
I mean, do you feel that your persistent warnings have been vindicated by what we're seeing, not just here, but also throughout Europe?
I mean, France in particular is having a horrendous time.
Well, I have been campaigning for a long time.
I remember going to the very first meeting of something called the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, representing the EU in November 1986.
Well, that's five years before we had the Paris Convention.
The Paris Convention set a goal, set a goal, keep the temperature rise below two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
Keep it below 1.5 if you can.
Well, a lot of work went into the Paris Convention.
A lot of work went into the Glasgow meeting we just had.
The idea there was to say, are we on track to keep these temperatures down?
Well, the answer is we weren't on track.
I mean, people like Alok Sharma, my own son, Boris, put a huge amount of effort into that.
The answer is at Paris and in Glasgow, it turns out we're not on track.
Now, I was very impressed by what your correspondents were just saying, Mr. Alamira.
There's no doubt about it that at this present moment, the name of the game probably is adaptation.
You actually have to work out how to deal with the rising temperatures which are there, which are experienced by people all over the world.
You know, okay, we are complaining today about 40 degrees Celsius.
You know, 40 degrees Celsius would be a nice warm day in parts of India, you know, who are more used to 50 degrees.
Well, adaptation crucially.
But picking up your point, is my message getting across?
Not my message, because it's been a message to our scientists for 40 or 50 years.
I think the message is getting across.
What is not getting across is the political action.
I've got to say to you, I have been disappointed, looking just at the domestic political scene over the last few days, at how little attention the candidates have been bringing to bear on this issue.
Yeah, I completely agree.
I completely agree.
They've been so engrossed in their own power grabbing, they've forgotten that actually there's a huge crisis unfurling right before our eyes.
Let's go to Esther here.
Esther, what's your view about, I mean, the climate change debate divides people like everything these days.
When you see what's going on here and Europe and so on, and you hear the arguments, it's inarguable, isn't it, that we are, if we're not very careful, heading for a apocalypse?
I don't actually, and this is something that we argue within the Conservative Party as well.
You know, I don't believe that any rational person is a climate change denier.
I don't think so.
I don't think that's the case.
But, you know, like he was saying, we've had these conferences and we've had all these agreements, like the Paris Accord and, you know, Glasgow.
But the people that are polluting the most, the people that are really responsible for this, are not even in the room.
China said they've committed to being net zero by 2060.
They've laid out no plans for that.
We don't even know how they plan on getting there.
Indonesia said, oh, yeah, we'll kind of do that.
Narendra Modi in India, 2050.
How are we getting there?
We don't know.
The UK contributes about 1% of global emissions.
And yet we're expected to completely fundamentally change our lives to accommodate this plan.
And the people that are really polluting are not even playing their part.
And it just makes you question, you know, that is where the political issue is.
I think that's a very good point.
Larissa, you represent students.
Young people are the future.
This is your future that is being imperiled here by political inaction.
What's your view?
I'm in fact former president, so we'll say how...
Oh, you're on your way out, aren't you?
That's right.
But what I'm saying is that...
You understand what students feel about it.
Absolutely.
And I think there is a kind of readying number of students who are looking at the action that's being taken and saying it's nowhere near fast enough.
You know, I was at COP26 representing students and there was a vast gap between what was being said in the room and what was being said on the streets by young people who were coming from across the world to demand radical change and transformative action that reckons with an issue that has been on the horizon for a long time.
And yet we're still seeing these massive companies that are huge polluters, who we know are contributing the vast majority to climate breakdowns.
Are the tactics being used by people protesting about this the right ones?
In other words, lying in front of busy traffic, stopping people getting to school, hospitals and so on, you know, destroying or defacing famous artworks.
You know, the News UK building was attacked.
People are attacking us.
People are at a loss as what to do.
Does vandalism just to get attention, does that actually help win over an argument?
But I think what's happening here is that people are at loss as to what to do because we've had the talks, we've had the summits, we've had the conferences, we've had the annual meetings.
What else do we do?
Put it to the people to make us vote.
This is the thing.
I understand these arguments, but my bigger thing is we are not voting on these issues.
We have people, we have these economists in Switzerland and Glasgow and all of these things making these radical decisions for the British public.
And we're not being allowed to vote.
You can convince people.
You do not disrupt their lives.
Stanley Johnson said, if the three candidates, or as four as it was, left to run the country, if none of them are talking about this, even as this massive heat wave is erupting, the highest temperature we've ever had, I'm not sure what would.
But this is the problem.
The reason why they're not talking about it is because of where democratic pressure is.
People feel alienated from this conversation because they say, actually, it doesn't really matter what we say because there's going to be some Swedish teenager or some Swiss economist somewhere that says we need to make decisions and forcing it down on us.
So there's no point.
That is how you make change.
You get people involved.
You don't terrorize their lives by gluing yourselves to roads.
And you actually have a real conversation.
It depends on how you define democracy because when I've been on these marches myself and many peaceful protests about climate action and often you hear the chant, this is what democracy looks like.
Well, it's not just a lot of people.
Are people voting on it?
Yeah, but I think marching and peaceful protesting is very effective.
I think trashing historic art is self-defeating actually.
Well, the race to replace Boris Johnson as prime minister is reaching the end game.
Just a moment I'll be talking his legacy with his father, Stanley Johnson.
But first, an update on the leadership contest.
Kemi Badnock's been knocked out today.
That leaves Rishi Sunak, Penny Morden and Liz Truss.
So talk to the political editor, Kate McCann, is in Westminster for saying, all the latest.
Okay, Kate, we're down to the last three.
My prediction right from the start of Rishi and Truss with Rishi as the winner, I think it's holding water.
Do you see a Mordant surge to the top two?
It's possible.
I think it's unlikely, but it's entirely possible.
And the reason for that is because what's going on with the voting at the minute is pretty much entirely tactical.
Just look at what happened today, for example.
Rishi Sunak, he only added three votes to his number after 14 yesterday.
Does that sound like it makes any sense?
And the fact that Penny Morden yesterday went backwards and today piled on 10 votes, despite the fact that many more of Tom Tugenhats were expected to go her way.
And for that matter, Liz Truss, who's the candidate probably least aligned with Mr. Tugenhat, seemed to grab the most of his vote.
Something fishy is going on in Westminster and MPs are talking about it tonight.
In fact, there are reports that Rishi Sunak is on the terrace of the House of Commons.
Now, that's unusual.
And what it tells you, peers, is that even the frontrunner isn't necessarily 100% confident, although I think he's fairly certain to be in the final two, because the votes could well change tomorrow if Tom Tugenhatt's votes move from Liz Truss to another candidate.
And of course, depending on what happens to Kemi Badenock's votes from today, they could well favour Liz Truss.
The question is, when it all shakes down, there are a group of Conservative MPs who want to see Penny Mordant and Rishi Sunak in the final two.
Do they have enough votes between them to make that happen?
Or will it be, as you say, the more predictable result of Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak going down to the wire?
Well, it's very fishy, but my money's on Rishi, mainly because he's so dishy.
Malcolm.
Anyway, we're going to leave there.
Sorry, Kirk, can only apologise to you and the nation for that appalling series of puns.
Appreciate you joining me, as always.
Let's pick up with Boris Johnson's father, Stanley Johnson.
Stanley, who's your money on to be the new leader?
Well, I'm not betting.
I'm not betting, but I want to pick up on the use of that word fishy.
Well, fishy.
I think we saw in recent weeks a truly fishy, a squalid, a squalid political assassination is all I can say here at this point.
Really?
Of your son?
A squalid political assassination, which bears no reference, to my mind, to the achievements which he put out, his administration put out.
And I give you a go back, I wasn't Brexit here, but Brexit.
Brexit was one.
COVID was another.
The environment, we were talking about the environment at the beginning of this program.
Well, he really pushed on the environment and the biomass.
And then you've got Ukraine.
So honestly, I am bewildered.
And, you know.
Well, in the end, in the end, Stanley, he lost the trust of 60 of his own senior ministers because they were sick and tired of the lying over party gate and then Pinchergate and all the other things.
I mean, it wasn't because they suddenly woke up and thought we're going to assassinate him.
They've been driven to the end of their tether, would be their argument.
That's what you say.
That's what you say, Piers.
I have a much blacker view of this whole thing.
I have a much blacker view.
And I don't see anything in this except political opportunism by the opponents.
Some of the opponents were in the house, some were on the other side of the chamber.
That's the way it went.
Policy is a tough game.
I hope that life pans out again in a different way.
Do you think that Rishi Sunak is the biggest culprit in this political assassination?
I don't want to get into that either.
What I'm saying is that any objective view, and I spent a lot of time traveling abroad, they cannot believe what happened in this country.
They simply cannot believe that a politician, a prime minister, who was elected with a majority of, I think, 80 over 80 and a massive popular rate larger than we've had before, cannot believe that a handful of people can turn him out.
That's my position now.
But it's much more important at this moment to concentrate on quote unquote the legacy.
And I think, you know, there we see real opportunity to build on that.
And I think the environment is one of those things.
By the way, I think building bridges with Europe is another one.
It's another one.
Well, hang on.
Hang on, Stanley.
I mean, you say building bridges with Europe.
It's your son that took us out of Europe and suck a massive two fingers up to Europe.
So I'm not sure how that's going to be his legacy.
I'm saying that once we are out of Europe, what was the big challenge?
The big challenge was create a new architecture in Europe.
And we didn't do that.
And I think we would have been doing that.
I, for example, want us to rejoin the European Environment Agency, which allows for countries like Switzerland and Turkey and Norway and Sweden.
That's why North Sweden to be part of that.
I'd like to say, get back into that.
Can I ask you, Stanley?
Can I ask you?
Does Boris believe that he was the victim of a political assassination?
If he doesn't, he doesn't read enough novels, but as far as I'm concerned, the hand.
You must have talked to him.
The hand, this, to my mind, was a put-up job from beginning to end.
That's how I see it.
And I think that we will learn our lessons on this one.
We'll learn our lessons that you can't proceed in a democratic way by this sort of mechanism.
Right, but that is, of course, how he himself took power, isn't it?
Well, he took power, but he had the grace within weeks of taking power to go to the country and get a mandate from the country, as he did in December 2019.
Okay, so Stanley, look, I understand your loyalty as his dad, and it's very admirable.
But do you not understand a lot of this Boris brought on himself?
I mean, the repeated lying, the partygate scandal was enough to have toasted most prime ministers.
He got fined by the police for breaking his own rules.
The way he behaved over Pinchergate was ridiculous.
And in the end, I think a lot of his top people just threw in the towel because they could feel confidence in the government had just been shattered.
Do you not accept that any of that could be correct?
I reject every single element of your dossier.
I just don't see it.
You can't reject the fact he got fined by the police for breaking his own law.
Hold on.
I mean, I have no doubt that the cabinet ministers have gone over the limit.
The speed limit had finesse.
I don't think there's anything unusual about being fined.
And politicians do get fined.
I mean, frankly, it was a fixed penalty notice.
And as I understood it, it was his birthday and he picked up the glass in the thing.
I am not ready to accept your language.
Okay.
Look, Stanley, we'll have to agree to disagree.
I fully understand, as a father myself, why you feel the way you do and you feel loyal and you feel he's been betrayed and assassinated.
Others will disagree, but I appreciate your candor.
I thank you for joining me.
Always a pleasure, Piers.
Good to see you.
Quick reaction from the pack.
I mean, Boris Johnson's dad there saying he was the victim of a squalid political assassination.
Pretty strong words.
A victim.
A victim.
Boris Johnson has led this country into disrepute time and time again.
You know, many students of young people are exhausted by having this person represent the country in such a way that, you know, is divorcing us from our partners in Europe that has not been serious when it comes to climate action.
You know, the world is burning.
The country is literally melting.
And the conversations that we're having to have because of the way that he has led the Conservative Party in the country are just embarrassing.
There are so many things that should be on the agenda right now about repairing post-COVID, the gaps in our education system, the gaps in our social care systems.
And yet, we are here in such a, what seems to be such an undemocratic process where many people across the country are so divorced from it, it's just disempowering and very alienating, really.
Esther, your reaction to, well, Boris's defense and also what Larissa's.
Harry's Struggle vs Lucky Few 00:05:26
I mean, I completely, I understand and I completely agree with you.
And I understand, obviously, Boris's father, because it's not easy to see that.
But obviously, the country has spoken.
I just want to say on the point of kind of this undemocratic sort of leadership contest, it would be the same if the Labour Party had to be able to do that.
Exactly.
It's just a way to vote for a party.
They're free to choose a lot of people.
At the end of the day, the candidates for the leadership contest are not stupid, right?
They're going where they think the votes are.
They're speaking about the things they think their base wants to hear about.
So I completely get that.
Who do you think is going to win?
Call me crazy.
I still think that it's going to come down to Sunak and Mordant.
If that is, that's Sunak's worst case.
And who wins?
Mordent wins.
Because the thing is, those MPs are thinking, who's going to be my sister?
I'll stay by my original tip, Rishi.
We'll see what happens.
Thank you both very much for joining us.
I know you're fleeing the country to get away from me.
So I look forward to seeing you.
You're not involved.
You said you weren't coming back last time and here you are.
You couldn't resist me.
Lovely to see you, Ulysser.
And safe travels.
Uncensored next, Prince Harry has been banging on to the Americans about how awful they are again.
I'll get a reaction from an American about this TV personality comedian and red-blooded American cat tip will be giving her view on Harry's comments.
Cross the board.
Welcome back to Piers Melbourne Uncensored.
Now to the gruesome Tucson friends of the show, Harry and Megan.
Harry was at it again yesterday.
Entering the political fray in America with another rambling speech.
I wonder how it went down though with Americans.
Here is a clip.
We're living through a pandemic that continues to ravage communities in every corner of the globe.
Climate change wreaking havoc on our planet, with the most vulnerable suffering most of all.
The few weaponizing lies and disinformation at the expense of the many.
And from the horrific war in Ukraine to the rolling back of constitutional rights here in the United States, we are witnessing a global assault on democracy and freedom.
Well, joining me now is Fox News contributor and all-round American gal, Kat Timf.
Welcome to you, Kat.
Your response to this haughty prince lecturing you about how to lead your life.
Yeah, I really can't stand the climate lecture from somebody who took a private jet, most assuredly, to go give that speech.
I can't believe it.
I mean, if we compared my climate footprint to his, there'd be no comparison whatsoever.
And look, if I had private jet money, I'd take a private jet.
He obviously was born into those kinds of connections.
And if you're born a prince, you generally have advantages that almost no one else will have to make your life whatever it is that you want and to do whatever it is you want, with maybe one exception, and that is to be a professional victim,
which unfortunately seems to be the career path that he's most attracted to as he is whining at every chance he gets about almost everything nonstop without offering any sort of solution or even acknowledgement for the way some of his own behavior might contribute to the problems he's complaining about.
Right.
He also likened his struggle for freedom to Nelson Mandela's, who just to remind everybody spent 27 years in a six by six prison cell.
Do you see any comparison between the two struggles?
I certainly don't see a comparison.
I think it's such a glaring, glaring difference that we really learn a lot more about who he is.
Again, I think all Americans, because there's a handful of people in the world that are just get that kind of privilege just by based on, you know, where they're born into and how they're born.
He's one of those very lucky few.
So all of the rest of us don't want to hear him whining about his struggles.
No doubt he has had struggles in his life, but I know that that kind of privilege and power makes any kind of struggle much, much easier for you.
Of course it does.
Now, America, unfortunately, is two for two in sending your women over here to inveigle their way into our royal family.
The first was Wallace Simpson, who led to an abdication of one of our kings.
The second is Megan Markle, who's wrestled Harry away from the clutches of his family and taken him to make hundreds of millions of dollars from the royal titles they were afforded by an institution they profess to despise.
What's your view of Megan Markle?
Apparently she's thinking of running for president.
You know what?
I bet she does.
I mean, all of the, they love the attention so much.
And it's just so remarkable how much attention they're able to get and how much money they're able to get the both of them, despite I'm not really sure what it is that they're good at.
I mean, even this most recent speech from Harry, he was going on and on about the loss of freedom in America.
Even though he himself called the First Amendment bonkers, he was on a podcast.
he said was, you know, I've got much, so much I want to say about the First Amendment as I sort of understand it, but it is bonkers.
I mean, that is not exactly the most astute analysis that I've ever heard.
And this is the kind of thing where you're getting hundreds of millions of dollars for analysis like that and then not even acknowledging your hypocrisy when apparently you don't stand for freedoms in this country.
It blows my mind.
It's a great gig if you can get it, honestly, to have one.
Elvis Tribute Performance Analysis 00:04:19
I think we'd all been so lucky.
We'd all love a giga.
I'd love to go on Harry's struggle.
It must be so struggling.
Kat, great to talk to you.
Thank you very much.
You too.
Well, he was the king of rock and roll, global icon.
Would he survive today's cancel culture, I wonder?
Who better to talk to about Elvis Presley and his first wife, Priscilla?
We met Elvis when she was just 14 and was married to him for six years.
I'll talk to her about the king and this amazing new movie, which tracks their life together.
Uncensored next.
I can't help falling in love with you.
Well, welcome back.
I'm delighted to say, I'm joined by somebody who knew the king of rock and roll, Elvis Presley, like a few other people in the world.
Priscilla Presley married Elvis in 1967.
They were married for six years.
She remained a constant in his life.
Despite all the controversies, she remained loyal to him to the end.
Priscilla joins me now, live from Los Angeles.
Welcome to you, Priscilla.
Thank you.
Thank you, Piers.
Priscilla, I was just imagining that the movie is just exhilarating and fantastic.
I want to play Clip first and then come to you.
I need to get back to who I really am.
Still alive.
And who are yours?
I just gotta be making the most of this thing while I can.
This can't all be over a flash.
Priscilla, I found it unbelievably exciting to watch this.
And I never knew Elvis Presley.
You were married to Elvis Presley.
What was it like for you to watch this movie?
Not least because there's a character, of course, playing you.
Oh, well, to be honest with you, I was very nervous about it because of Baz Luhrmann.
And as we all know, Baz, you know, has his own unique style, which is good.
But I just didn't know how he was going to portray Elvis.
And I was concerned, very concerned.
Baz wanted myself and Jerry Schilling, who used to work for Elvis, to go to New York at the Gala Mets Gala and also to go to Cannes Film Festival.
And I hadn't seen the film yet, so I bowed out gracefully and said, there's no way I can see it because obviously I don't know anything about what you're doing.
So he arranged a screening for Jerry and I at Warner Brothers.
We didn't speak for, I guess, three-fourths of the movie.
And I bent over and said to Jerry, well, it looks like we're going to Cannes.
It was good.
It was good.
I have to say, I was completely engrossed in it as well as Jerry.
Boston, Austin Butler did an amazing job.
It was, I mean, he had Elvis down to a T, literally.
He studied him for two years.
You see, that's fascinating because I just assumed he had him down to a T. You would know better than most because Elvis is such a unique performer.
People have tried to emulate him over the years, I think, with varying degrees of success.
Do you think Austin Butler has got him better than anyone that's ever tried?
Hands down, better than anyone, anyone.
My daughter was quite emotional when she saw it, as I, and went, my God, I mean, he has, he just, it was like watching Elvis.
His movements, his smirk, his walk, his attitude, his temper.
I mean, it was like reincarnation.
I mean, it was beautifully done, beautifully.
And Olivia de Jong plays you.
Were you happy with that portrayal?
Yes, I was.
Austin Butler Nails the Role 00:08:22
I mean, we never talked.
Baz did all the talking, of course.
But I thought she did a very nice job.
She was sensitive to him, which I was always to him, and his needs and what he was trying to do with his life and what he wanted out of his life.
So I thought she did a very nice job.
Elvis was, without a doubt, one of the most brilliant talents that the world of entertainment has ever seen.
That's unarguable.
He was also quite a controversial figure in many ways.
Do you think you would have survived this weird cancel culture that we now have to endure?
Wow, that's a good question.
I think of that often.
You know, what would Elvis think?
He wouldn't believe what is going on right now to this country or to all over what's happening to this planet.
He was very concerned about our presidents, who was ruling the country.
And people would never believe that, but he was an avid reader as well.
Not just, you know, religious books, but also he was reading what was going on in the U.S. What would he have made you think of what is currently going on in the U.S.?
Oh, no, he wouldn't believe it.
I mean, he truly, you know, I don't believe it.
I don't think any of us believe what's going on right now.
We've never been through anything like this, and it's pretty much global, but us as a country, it's baffling.
It's truly baffling.
I'm for the first time worried about my future if I'm not only my children, my grandchildren as well.
Very unpredictable, and Elvis would probably go to the president, like he did with Nixon, put his foot down and say, what's going on?
What is it that you find particularly saddening or worrying?
Oh my gosh, the state that we're in.
I mean, my gosh, I don't know what happened to freedom.
I don't know if there is freedom here anymore.
You know, no one says what side they're on, Republican or whatever you want to be.
Being very careful what you say, how you say it.
I think we're in a very dangerous time.
We're at a strange stage, Priscilla, where even high-profile women are scared to say what they think a woman is.
That's true.
That's true.
How sad is that?
I mean, it's to watch this going on, being very young in the limelight and knowing a lot of people who are in the limelight, their fears on what's going on.
Not that they're just in the limelight, but I think it's spread quite a bit in this country about where we're headed.
And I often think, like you asked, you know, what Elvis would think, you know, what would he do?
He just, he wouldn't believe it.
He was a die-hard American.
He was America.
Yeah.
He loved this country.
He loved it.
But it seems to me, it seems to me, Priscilla, there's a kind of movement, not just in America, but I'll talk about America about this.
There's a movement to try and trash everything that's come before.
And that's why I was curious whether you felt Elvis, whether there would be a campaign to try and cancel him for inappropriate statements, inappropriate behavior, whatever it may be, inappropriate lyrics.
We've seen it time and again now with so many people.
That's why I was curious what you felt because it seemed to me he would fly in the face of so much of what this weird culture represents.
Well, per the movie, if you saw, and you did see the movie, you know, a long time it was stated that Elvis, you know, was a racist.
He was not a racist.
He's never been a racist.
Elvis had friends, black friends, friends from all over.
He loved their music.
He loved their style.
He loved being around, you know, black musicians.
I mean, that's Domino.
When he was in Vegas, he was in the lounge playing, and he would always, we would always go and hang out with him.
Sammy Davis Jr., the same thing, would always come into the dressing room.
And he loved being around blacks and being around anyone, actually.
He was just not prejudiced in any way.
So, and not racist in any way.
So I don't know.
You know, this is a very frightening time for someone.
I don't, it's almost like, you know, we're looking for something from everyone that we can somehow dispose of them in some way.
And that's why it's so frightening right now.
Was Elvis the great love of your life?
Yes, he was.
He obviously sang about love so many times.
When you're on your own, perhaps, is there one song that Elvis sang which resonates most with you?
Oh my gosh, you know, there's so many songs.
Gosh, that's hard to pick.
That's a hard question.
That's the hardest one you've asked me.
Gosh, I think it's a lot of fun.
What's the one when you hear it come on the radio and you think your heart flips a beat when you hear it?
Well, I think it's being in Las Vegas watching him do the shows.
And I think, you know, the songs that he sang that people were all drawn to.
And I think that, you know, all of us are attached to a song.
There's so many with him.
I can't even tell you.
It's now or never.
Probably it's now or never because I heard him sing that in Germany, actually.
And that was given to him through the record label of the company.
And to watch him sing the song and try to reach the notes in perfection is what he was looking for, to perfect those notes because his tone, his pitch was not as high in that particular song.
So he would always try to reach it and mess up and then hit his leg and try it again and again and again.
So watching him kind of rehearse and trying to get it right was an experience.
As you can imagine.
He was a perfectionist.
Do you wish Priscilla in a way that you had never got divorced from Elvis?
And do you think that his life would have been different if you'd stayed together?
Gosh.
To be honest, I think we were better not married.
We had a great relationship.
He would come over to my home at all hours of the night, talk.
It could be 2 o'clock, 3 o'clock.
I would have my daughter wake my daughter up, be with us at some of that.
My mother, the same thing, although Lisa had to go to school.
He would come alone sometimes and sometimes bring Charlie Hodge, one of his guys that worked for him or someone else.
And we would just sit and talk and he'd bring him books and he'd read books to me.
And he left me with quite a few books as well.
But everything just seemed to be more relaxed, more at home when the tension wasn't there.
Now remember, I'm with Elvis Presley.
And watching the girls running up to him, wanting kisses from him, running to the stage, coming backstage.
It's a, you know, it's listen, being who he was and having all the women, you know, jump him.
Excuse me.
Kidding, I'm only kidding.
I think you're only half kidding, actually.
Literally just about.
Anyway, but no, it was an eye-opener for me and being married to probably one of the most famous musicians or singers in the world.
There isn't anyone that doesn't love Elvis.
Marriage to a Music Legend 00:01:22
Right, and I love how affectionately you talk about him.
You know, not many divorced spouses would talk with the kind of love and admiration that you have for him so many years, of course, after he sadly died.
He was a great human being.
He really was.
And he tried so hard, you know, at what he did to be perfect in many, many ways.
You know, he wanted a movie career, a good movie career.
That was one of the problems, as we know.
You saw the film that Elvis had him tied.
I mean, the Colonel had him tied up with a five-year contract with Hal Wallace of all people.
You know, Hal Wallace did more cutesy movies.
Girls on the Beach, as we know, never really gave him the part that he longed for.
The James Dean part.
That's really what he longed for.
But you know what, Priscilla?
He had one of the greatest careers that the world has ever seen in entertainment, and he was a true icon.
And the movie is utterly fantastic.
And I'm so glad you loved it as much as I did.
Priscilla, I've got to leave it there, but I could talk to you all night.
Thank you so much for your time.
I really appreciate it.
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
Well, that's all for us tonight.
Just remember, today a scientific survey came out saying Marmite is good for your anxiety.
I'm good for your anxiety.
Good night.
Good
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