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March 6, 2023 - Uncensored - Piers Morgan
46:49
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Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Sussexes Coronation Invitation Drama 00:14:18
Tonight on Piers Morgan uncensored Harry and Megan revealed they've been invited to the King's coronation, but they won't say if they'll deign to show up.
How much more of this Sussex circus should any of us have to tolerate?
Plus, drugs cheat or victim of an injustice.
I'll talk exclusively to boxer Connor Benn on the dramatic fight to clear his name after failing drugs tests.
And after ransacking Roald Dahl and neutering James Bond, the dreaded sensitivity readers are deployed to sanitise Ladybird classics, including Cinderella and Snow White.
Well good evening from London.
Welcome to Piers Morgan uncensored.
I'm sick of talking about them.
Honestly, I am.
I think most of us are, but they can't stop yapping about themselves and putting themselves into the news agenda.
So we have to.
Yes, it's Harry and Megan who've now regaled us with their truth.
So far in sycophantic interviews with Oprah Winfrey, with James Gordon, with Stephen Colbert, they bashed Britain in six hours of indulgent whining on Netflix.
They've fronted bogast on their self-centered versions of history.
Harry has barely finished the global family trashing tour in support of his treacherous family trashing memoir.
But inevitably, he's decided that the world hasn't heard quite enough from him.
So Harry's latest wheeze is a live therapy session with Dr. Gabor Mate, a fated trauma expert, in which he reminded us again that he, Harry, is the world's biggest victim.
And then at some point he said towards the end of the book, when is someone in this family going to break free and live?
Have you done that?
I have now.
Yeah.
It was a feeling.
That was great.
I do.
I mean, once the book came out, I felt incredibly free.
I felt a huge weight off my shoulders.
Oh, shut up.
Fans paid £20 each.
Can you imagine paying for 90 minutes of that psycho babble in which Harry revealed he began therapy after a row with Megan and again divulges his fondness for drugs?
I started doing it recreationally, he says, and then started to realize how good it was for me.
He's talking about psychedelic narcotics.
I would say it's one of the more fundamental parts of my life that changed me and helped me deal with the traumas and pains of the past.
Well, as though there's been an advert not taking drugs, it's old Harry, isn't it?
US border agents take a dim view of drug use by non-US citizens.
Nigella Lawson was once banned from flying to America after admitting she'd taken cocaine.
Another compelling reason why we don't want them at the King's coronation.
We might end up being stuck with them for good.
Well, this unfortunately worded caption of the story in the Times said it best.
At the end of the talk with Prince Harry, Dr. Gabor Mate said he was suffering from PTSD, ADHD, depression, anxiety, and panic disorder.
No reports on what Harry's suffering from after that.
So we're all, I think, feeling the same way, which is enough.
Surely enough.
And yet it won't be, will it?
They're just going to keep going and going and going, depicting themselves as the world's greatest victims whilst pocketing hundreds of millions of dollars to describe their life of victimhood.
There's no end to the self-indulgent arrogance from the Sussexes and their grievances.
And they've now announced that they've been in email correspondence over their attendance at the King's coronation.
But, and I quote exactly, an immediate decision on whether the Duke and Duchess will attend will not be disclosed by us at this time.
Think about that response for a moment.
The lack of self-awareness is jaw-dropping.
They've been invited to the new monarch of Britain's coronation, and they'll go back to them with an answer when they've thought about it.
Is it any wonder that their popularity is plummeting on both sides of the Atlantic?
Is it any wonder they've become objects of such global ridicule?
Comedian Chris Rock's become the latest comic to target Meghan and Harry in his new Netflix special.
Some of that shit she went through was not racism.
It was just some in-law.
Sometimes it's just some in-laws.
I'm like, what the talking about?
No problem, they're so racist.
They wanted to know how brown the baby was going to be.
That's not racist.
Because even black people want to know how brown the baby gonna be.
Well, the Sussexes have been on what they call a journey when it comes to their claims of racism in the royal family.
First, they sensationally accused the royal family directly of racism.
Then they tried to gasfile us into believing they never accused the royal family of racism at all.
It was all the terrible media who'd done that.
Now it's increasingly clear that just about nobody takes any of these claims seriously anymore.
Harry ended his therapy session by addressing their ruthless mockery in a recent episode of South Park.
The more they criticise me, he said, the more I need to share.
Oh my God.
So same time tomorrow, Harry.
If you keep lying, we'll keep having to cover it.
Well, joining me now is author and historian Tessa Dunlop, who just flicked something weird across the desk there in her fury at my monologue.
Activist and BLN organiser Iman Ayton and talk-to-view contributor Esther Kraku and the Sunday Times Royal Editor Roya Nicker.
I want to start with, because Roya, you broke the story that the King's office has sent an emailed invitation to the coronation for Harry and Megan.
But their response to me said it all.
Just the arrogance of saying, yeah, we've got it and we'll come back to you when we've decided what we want to do.
It was an interesting response.
It wasn't quite the response I suppose I was expecting.
I was just very keen and asked and asked and asked whether or not they had received an invite and got it very late on Saturday night that they had in fact been invited by the King.
And I suppose that's the olive branch that everyone has been waiting for.
There has been so much speculation about whether or not they were going to be invited and then come.
But of course now everyone is going to be waiting to see if they both come, if just Harry comes.
Of course it's Archie's fourth birthday on the day so there is that to take into account.
But yeah, we're now waiting to see when they might RSVP to the King.
I mean like you say an olive branch from the King and a big one frankly because he's just had to put up with all this trashing in the book about him, about his wife Camilla, about his son William, about Kay.
All of them got it in this book.
So he made the olive branch which is seen as the decent thing for him to do although I wouldn't have recommended he do it.
If they come we're going to have the circus the entire time they're over and it will in some way overshadow the coronation.
Not completely, but it will certainly cast a shadow.
If they don't come, my view is, well, all right, we'll have a bit of noise about them not coming, but there won't be that shadow.
They'll be in California, nowhere near the action when it happens.
Isn't it a smart play for everybody that they just stay in Montecito?
The thing is, I think the King wouldn't have issued that invite unless he actually really, really wanted his son there.
He wants his son there.
I think the other thing we saw with the Platinum Jubilee service last year for Her Majesty the Queen, the late Queen, of course, is that they did come over and they were actually able, after all the hullabaloo of earlier last year, after Oprah and all of that, they were able to actually come to parts of it and stay out of the limelight.
I think the other thing to remember here is a coronation is a once-in-a-generation massive deal.
There will be golden carriages, there will be 2,000 people in the Abbey.
It will be an extraordinary sight.
Harry and Megan, yes, okay, there's a bit of a circus around them, but I think all eyes will be on the king and queen and everything else that's going on that day and the rest of the royal family.
So I think it's doable.
I don't think that if they come, I don't think they're going to completely steal the show.
They didn't last year for the Platinum Jubilee.
It can be done.
Well, I hope you're right, Roya.
But another cracking scoop.
Congratulations in the Sunday Times.
Appreciate you joining me.
Thank you very much.
Okay, let's get into this.
Iman, the Chris Rock thing, first of all, did make me laugh out loud because, of course, I was accused of being a racist for not believing all this racism garbage that she was going out with.
Now Chris Rock has said it.
Is he a racist?
Okay, well, we have to put everything that he said into context first, okay?
So he said that everyone wants to pay the victim, and he also referred to white men being the most recent culprits alongside Meghan Markle.
He also said that Megan had won the light-skinned lottery.
So in other words, she has light-skinned privilege, and so therefore he couldn't quite understand why she was still complaining.
He also said that she was acting dumb in regards to the royal family.
And that's when he proceeded to say that they were the original racists, they invented colonialism, and they were the OGs of racism.
So in other words, racism should be expected.
So he basically spent the best parts of his set making it dead clear that the royal family were a bunch of racists and that Meghan Markle's ignorance and naivety.
Well, he's alluding to utterly ludicrous.
So that was the same.
He was alluding to colonialism.
And you can certainly frame an argument that there was obviously racism and colonialism.
I can accept that.
We're talking about the current members of the royal family being directly accused of racism, Esther.
What really annoyed me about Harry retracting that was two years of damaging allegations left to hang around the world that the royals had been racist.
And then he turns around and said, well, you never meant to be racist.
Well, then I always made the point that he didn't know what he was talking about because he started trying to wade into a conversation that was way out of his depth, saying it was unconscious bias.
And I often made the point that, hold on, you've let these allegations stew for two years, saying that there was concern about the darkness of your child.
Even people that are not particularly fond of anything to do with sort of racial politics would say that is racist, right?
But then you to turn around and say, actually, the media said that it was racist and that we are suddenly so blind and all we do is follow the media that we can't actually discern this for ourselves.
That's when everyone on both sides of the debate said, you don't know what you're talking about.
You know what, Tessa.
You're just using your wife's.
Yeah, look, I mean, we've talked about this a lot.
I feel like Prince Harry here, like the white plonker, do you know what?
Bear in mind that when I left Good Morning Britain, I think I've talked about this before, but when I left Good Morning Britain, it's because specifically I didn't believe Megan Markle's claims that she'd gone to someone at the palace and said she was suicidal and they said she couldn't get any treatment or therapy or help.
And also I didn't believe the racism claims.
Now, what's interesting is neither of those, no, but hang on, Tessa, here's my point.
Neither of those claims get repeated in Harry's 420-page book.
It's like they never happened.
And yet they were the incredibly incendiary and explosive allegations which triggered this whole thing.
What happened to them?
Where did they go?
It's a question of nuance.
I am very clearly a white woman, but I am married to a foreigner at the bottom of the European pecking order, a Romanian.
And I remember, and why do family deny this?
I remember my aunt, her little pink fist banging on the table, our country is too full.
We don't want him over here.
I remember the way they spoke to him, such as some members, not all members of my family, with a louder voice, like he was a trades person coming in the back door in the 1950s.
This stuff, it filters in.
It's very hard to prove.
It's hard to articulate.
And we're talking about white on white in the context of my family.
So what I'm trying to explain.
You're describing as inophyllia, though.
Right, okay.
I know.
I've explained that.
But I'm talking about these things that are very hard to articulate.
They're hard to prove.
And they're actually, what happens is they get labelled, they get pigeonholed, they get pushed into the house.
Hang on, hang on.
I'm sorry.
Actually, I believe Harry when he said he felt something.
I've hung around public schoolboys.
I've been in agreement.
That's fine.
We've referred to the Serena and Venus Williams as silver.
I've heard that with my own ears in the last few years.
We're not talking about any of those things.
Listen, here's my point.
We are, actually, aren't we?
Well, no, that's what I'm talking about.
They went on global television to Oprah Winfrey, the most famous people in the world.
And they made direct allegations of racism that they now have said they simply didn't make.
We didn't mean to say anyone was racist.
They've never named anybody who they originally said these things.
Nothing.
It doesn't appear in the book.
It's just vanished after two years of incredible damage to the brand of the monarchy.
And I just say the agenda has changed.
I just want to just throw that point in.
I've said this several times.
Their agenda has changed, Piers, and so therefore they're taxed at South Tuesday.
And so that is why it's no longer in the book.
Because their premise right now is about getting to turn up at the coronation.
Bear in mind, these two have done so much to damage the institution of the monarchy in the last three years.
Why would they even want to be there celebrating the coronation of our next king?
Well, firstly, I think it is more than possible to highlight racism within an institution whilst simultaneously wanting to reconnect with your family.
That's the first point.
Secondly.
So is that what they did?
Did they highlight racism or did they?
Well, how did we establish that you didn't know what you were saying?
That was the original plan to highlight racism.
We already know that they have backpedaled with that.
Yeah, so there was no racism.
We already know that.
And in terms of the coronation, well, it's Archie's birthday, as we already know.
So for me personally, I'm not sure.
Yeah, four-year-old kid's birthday party versus coronation.
I don't believe that's a coincidence.
I don't believe that that's a coincidence.
Do me a favour.
Do you think they found the coronation to ruin Archie's birthday?
I'm not sure.
Oh, forgiveness, fake.
Just on record, Piers are shouting.
Just on record, Tier Man shouting.
I'm sorry, this is the stuff of total insanity.
Of course, they didn't plan the coronation.
To be fair, to ruin the four-year-old king's birthday party and gather all that.
I think it could have been a winner.
You think it's deliberate?
No, I literally true.
Look at the children.
All right, I'm out.
Don't look at everyone.
Only I'm allowed to shout on this show.
Esther, apparently, they've done this deliberately, the coronation.
To be fair.
So ruling Archie's birthday.
I do see that argument.
There could be merit there because if they said they're not coming because of Archie's birthday.
Don't tell me.
You've gone nuts on the street.
No, no, let's politics.
We need to found out that they're not.
What we've got is, to me, they're like teenagers and teenagers often make really good points.
They're at the front of pushing the envelope forward.
They've made their case, sometimes inarticulate, sometimes clumsy, sometimes egregiously.
Eubank Testosterone Ban Fallout 00:10:36
Okay, now they're in their bedroom, right?
And we need them to come out the bedroom.
No, we don't.
Yes, no, they don't.
They need to climb down because mummy and daddy at the table want them absolutely.
Yes, if you do the metaphor.
And by the way, here's the other point.
It's not just about what the king wants because it's his son.
It's about what the king should do as the right thing for the country.
That's what I wanted to ask.
The king represents all of us, right?
I don't think the most people in Britain want Harry and Meghan anywhere near the base.
It's not just about the Commonwealth.
Can I just say, I don't think that this is, in terms of the coronation, I don't think this is simply just about whether King Charles wants them there or whether Harry and Meghan want to be there.
I actually think that this is due to reputation management.
And I think it comes down to what is best for the institution.
And I believe what is best is redemption.
Yes or no?
I think that King Charles should prioritise revolutionary issues within his family, so I think they should go.
Should they be?
I don't think they should go.
I think this is something for the British public.
I'm quite frankly, I'm sick of the saga.
I'm sick of the drama.
I'm sorry for the issues that they're having, but this should be happening behind closed eyes.
Cessa, if they do come, if they do come, here's what they're going to do.
They're going to bring a camera crew, they're going to bring recorders, and they're going to invade the privacy of the royal family all over England.
And here's what's going to be the winners.
The royal family will win if they come.
They will win if they come.
And you, the press, the populist press will win, Piers.
So it's all gone to get them on those pews.
Actually, I'm no longer the popular press.
I'm a television presenter of a show called Piers Morgan Uncensor.
Interesting.
Yeah.
Well, look, I'm glad we all reached agreement that I'm right.
Delusions on grandeur, right?
Something for sure, if they do come, it will be, of course, a story and we will, of course, be compelled to cover it.
Well, that's it.
After the break, it's Conor Benner's boxing career hands in the balance.
I ask him some tough questions.
My exclusive interview is next.
Welcome back to Piers Organization.
So, Conor Ben, the son of boxing legend Nigel Benn, was one of British boxing's biggest prospects.
But in October last year, just days away from a domestic grudge supermatch with Chris Eubank Jr., Ben was accused of failing two drugs tests, and the fight was postponed.
He's chosen to speak to me exclusively on the dramatic fight he now has to clear his name.
Connor, thank you for joining me.
Why are you doing this interview?
Because I feel like a lot of people have speculated and had time to say what they want to say, and I've never been able to speak on it.
The court of public opinion has been pretty savage about what's happened.
I think it's because when the public hear anything about drugs in sport or cheating or anything like that, they immediately assume the worst.
And most of the time, they're right to assume that.
Let's be honest about it.
You're in that horrible position for any sportsman where you failed two drug tests and you're trying to prove your innocence.
But you've probably seen what social media has been saying.
How has that impacted on you?
I mean, it's been brutal.
You know, it does feel like a witch hunt.
I've never seen anything quite like this before in any other athlete.
Whether they've raised their hands to it or, you know, they've just taken a small ban.
You know, I was willing to fight for my innocence and prove my innocence.
Although there was an easy way out in the beginning in lying and saying, oh, I may have accidentally done this.
I may have done this by accident and taken a small six-month ban.
Instead, I've chose to fight this because my integrity mattered more to me and I would never, ever, ever raise my hands to something I ain't done.
Four months ago, you were preparing for one of the biggest fights of your life against Chris Eubank Jr.
Everyone was waiting for this, huge anticipation.
We all remembered what happened when the two fathers fought.
I remember it very well.
I know your dad well.
And Chris Eubank Sr.
And then your world falls apart.
What is that moment like for you when you heard about the failed drug test?
I didn't think anything of it, to be fair, when it was the first one.
When they're saying they found an adverse finding, I didn't really think anything of it.
Really?
No, not at all.
Isn't that every sportsman's nightmare?
No, because I thought there may have been an error.
I thought, let's run another test straight away.
Let's do, let's, you know, I know I've never even heard of this thing before.
This is the first time I heard of this thing.
It's a drug which is clomiphene, which can boost testosterone levels by up to 10%.
I'm 26%.
I'm 26 and reduce body fat.
Yeah, I'm just saying what it is.
Yes, I'm 26.
When people are saying that I may have needed a testosterone booster, I'm 26 years old.
I didn't even know what this thing was at the time.
So for me, I thought, okay, you know, it may have been, you know, an error or an accident somewhere along we can find out what's happened.
And then when it was when I found out that, you know, there'd been a second adverse finding was when I was like, okay, now something's actually wrong.
There's something wrong here.
What are you feeling inside yourself at that point?
Who's done this to me?
I genuinely looked around and I thought it was the hardest part of this whole period of everything I've been through.
This was the hard part was because I was looking around and thinking, okay, I'm actively taking it.
It's actively in something.
Or something's happened.
It's definitely there.
And these were the thoughts that were going on through my head.
Who's done this?
Do you accept this was in your body?
I don't accept it was in my body.
Not at all.
based on independent scientists looking at the reports, based on my own scientists looking at the reports and what we found.
People say, you may have paid for the best legal team.
Damn right, I pay for the best legal team.
Damn right, I pay for the best scientists.
My career's on the line.
My image is on the line.
My name is on the line and I can't be known for this.
And it was more so me employing the best people to find out what had actually happened.
What do you think of people who cheated in sport?
It should be banned for life.
Especially in context of sports.
It should be banned for life.
Yeah, banned for life.
You know, there's no room for it.
There's been a fighter today who's just had a brain hemorrhage.
There's no room for it.
I know firsthand the damage it does from my dad with Joe McLennan from my father's.
That was their wrong side of that fight.
I mean, both men got taken in the hospital, both nearly died.
And you think I do this, and people think I do this.
It's hard for me because it's like I turned Pro 19.
I'm under the public guy.
They've seen how hard I work over the years.
They've seen the three in the morning runs.
They've seen the nutrition.
They've seen the work I put in with my coaches.
You know, everyone can vouch for how hard I work.
But that's not good enough.
Normally, I would say the vast majority of times a sportsman test positive for drugs.
They always say, I didn't do it, invariably.
And then almost always, it is proven that they did.
You're in the strange position of you're in a kind of mid-position right now because the WBC have come back and they have said that they think there may have been reasons why you had this in your body, but they have made a presumption it was in your body.
You don't even accept that.
I don't accept that.
So when they say you may have taken, and it got a lot of attention, this, and some mockery, but when they said it may have been a highly elevated consumption of eggs could have created this positive testing, you don't even accept that.
I don't accept that, no.
The WBC, while I was on the, me and my team were on the phone to them on a Zoom call, they had come out and said that one of their scientists are currently dealing with two cyclists who have tested positive for clomophene in traces and they can prove it's in the embryos and the eggs.
I'm not willing to accept it because the 270 page report that I sent over to them, what my team sent over to them, had nothing to do with eggs.
It had everything to do with my test testing negative three times and nine days later testing positive.
They didn't conclude they found anything wrong with the testing.
What they did say, they said there was no conclusive evidence that Mr. Ben engaged in intentional or knowing ingestion of clomothine.
I don't believe it was there in the first place.
You've got to remember I've never, I don't even know what this thing is.
Coincidentally, for my first VADA test, coincidentally for the biggest fighter of my career, there's a substance in my body that I haven't even heard of.
The reality is this particular drug, which is becoming more prevalent in sport, and no one's quite sure why, but it can, as I said, boost testosterone levels by 50%.
It can reduce body fat.
So it clearly would have tangible benefits on an athlete.
I mean, it would.
Whoever the athlete is, it would help.
If someone was doing it deliberately, it would help.
Well, definitely.
But what the WBC is saying is even the peak of it in my system is still only a trace.
Why don't you give this dossier 270 pages of it?
Why don't you give it to the British Boxing Board of Control?
Because they're ultimately the ones that can sanction or not sanction your right to fight in this country.
My dad tore up his British boxing license on TV in the 80s.
You know, the board ain't going to stop me from fighting.
They can't stop me from fighting.
Like it's not having a professional fight in this country.
In this country, and that's fine, so be it.
They filed seven misconduct charges against me.
One of them was they wanted because we wanted the fight to go ahead.
The second one was because we didn't tell Eubank immediately.
And on the Monday, they said we're upholding all charges.
I thought you lot can do one.
You think I'm going to sit here and take this?
But if you have what they said is, well, show us the evidence.
But I couldn't get it.
You've got 270 pages of apparent evidence.
Surely the smart thing to do, whatever your views of the border control, they are the governing body.
Surely you should just give them your evidence.
Let them respond.
That's down to my legal team.
But what will stop you?
I don't understand what stops you.
My pride, the way they've dealt with this, the way the way that they're...
But I don't have to be licensed by the board.
That's my views on.
You need to fight in Britain.
I don't plan on finding Britain anytime soon.
Let's put it all on the internet.
I want to, trust me.
What's stopping you?
The ongoing legal cases.
That's the only thing that's...
This is your career, your livelihood.
This is everything at stake here.
Isn't it?
No, I agree.
Everything's on the line.
I agree.
And this is what I keep trying to tell my lawyer, but you can't do this.
You can't do that.
Mate, this would have been public.
I've known what I've known since December, and I've kept quiet.
Everyone firing, everyone attacking me, everyone.
And I've known what I've known since December.
And I'm sitting here again going, well, why can't we just release the information?
Why can't the public just know what's actually gone on?
Because the public, you know, from what I just looked at it today, social media, is savage.
They've convicted you.
They think you're guilty.
Public Guilt and Mental Health 00:06:09
And I'm going to have to deal with that.
I think.
I think the public have made up their minds.
How are you going to deal with that?
And then you heard your promoter says, look, it's time you've got to move on, you've got to progress.
What do you think when he says that?
Well, I don't think they're, I think the public have made up their mind already.
Irrelevant of what's presented, relevant of what the board say.
I've got strong DNA and I'm one hell of a fighter naturally.
I work hard, I've made loads of sacrifices and I'm willing to do what other people aren't willing to do.
And that's why I'm where I am, not because of cheating.
If you feel this passionately about it, I can sense it, I can sense you're emotional about this.
To be branded a cheat in the court of public opinion, what has that done to you?
Yes, it's hurt me.
Yeah.
It's been, yeah, it's hurt me, this is.
How badly?
I didn't think I was going to make it through this period.
I didn't think I was going to make it through.
You know, there was shame for saying I hadn't even done.
You know, it's hard because I felt like I was on death front for saying I ain't even done.
You know, if I had done something wrong, you know, I'm human.
You know, I raise my hands to it.
I made a mistake.
Wherever it is, my personal life, wherever it is, I raise my hands.
Never, never this.
And, you know, I felt like seven years of hard work and sacrifice and leaving my family and the image I maintained was just, you know, ruined at somebody else's incompetence.
You know, it was, yeah, it's been hard for the past.
You say you didn't think you'd make it.
What do you mean?
I didn't think I would.
I didn't think I'd...
I was taking it day by day.
I didn't think I'd see another day.
You were feeling suicidal?
Yeah, I'd say so, yeah.
Yeah, and it upsets me now because I don't know how I got so bad.
I got in a really bad way, but you've got to remember: if you think I'm innocent or if you don't think I'm innocent, I am innocent.
Yeah, but look, let me be clear.
I don't know, right?
This is the first time we've met.
I know your father from old.
I've watched you from afar.
I've admired your work in a boxing ring.
I don't know if you're in a single.
I would never do this to my family.
I would never do this to my supporters.
You think I'd do this to my dad?
You think I'd do this to my son, who's now got to grow up and look at, well, look at this.
You think it's not who I am?
Cheat or victim.
We're coming up.
More revelations from Connor Ben and his boxing ledger father Nigel also joins us for a bold intervention.
Welcome back now to the final part of my specific interview with Conor Ben.
He's just revealed that he was just feeling suicidal after failing two drugs tests, which made him a target of savage online abuse.
So I asked him about that abuse and just how bad it got.
There's been too many.
And what kind of thing?
Kill yourself.
People have told you to kill yourself.
Kill yourself.
He would have said, yeah, kill yourself.
Racist comments to my son, my family.
On social media.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Anything in person?
Nothing.
Nothing in person.
You know, it's cowardly.
It's cowardly.
I don't even think it's social media that bothers me.
It was more so the shame I felt leaving the house.
Although I had done nothing wrong.
I was having night terrors, panic attacks, you know.
And I don't throw these words at it in mental health.
I was really struggling.
I was in a really bad way, you know, and I was coping terribly with it.
I was coping in a really bad way.
How do you know about it?
It's still hard for me because I still can't believe I'm in this situation.
You know, I still can't believe how much the public want me to be guilty.
These are boxing pundits.
You're telling me I'm guilty.
Boxing pundits telling me I'm guilty.
They know me.
They know my family.
You know what I stand for.
You know who I am.
Why are you trying to label me a cheat?
You're not suing the labs, right?
Well, there is that tool.
You think I, what, manufacturing, manipulating, and concealing evidence?
I got an independent scientist to local report, and that's what we've seen from one of the best labs, manipulation, manufacturing and concerns.
But that wasn't verified by the WBC.
What are the WBC going to come out and say?
That's what I mean.
You've got to go to the governing body that can actually work with this properly.
It's hard because I want this to be done.
I want this to be finished and I want to resume with my career.
Should I just sit back and accept the fact that...
Are you going to sue the board?
No, of course.
I'll be suing the board.
When?
When it will be suing them now.
My legal team will be in touch with you me and when.
You know, as soon as...
But how much money, do you know?
For the full loss of earnings, damaged reputation.
How much is that?
Because the board shouldn't recognise Vardar.
Let me ask you this.
Let's assume for a moment your theory is right.
It's a theory.
It's not proven scientifically yet and hasn't been ratified by any governing body.
But if your theory is right, it was contaminated.
It would prompt the question, well, why?
Who would want to do that?
It would be in the, the only way it would be contamination if it's...
In whose interest is it to ruin this great fight?
I'm not saying it was deliberate.
What, in the lab?
I'm not saying it was deliberate.
You know, it may be an error in the testing.
I'm not saying deliberately.
I'm not saying that anyone's in the lab's deliberately done this.
I'm not saying that at all, but it may be an accident.
It may be an error.
There are millions and millions of pounds at stake here, dollars, wherever you cite.
Does this all sound from what I've said about the testing, manipulation, manufacturing, casino evidence, from what I'm saying to you, does that sound, does that sound...
Listen, you sound like you have a welter of information, but I cannot for the life of me understand why you wouldn't then give it to the governing body.
It's down to them whether you fight in this country again.
So I don't understand that.
That to me makes no sense.
But I think I can get a license elsewhere.
What does Eddie?
I mean, I've got a lot of time pretty earned.
I think he's a brilliant promotion.
He cares about his fighters.
Connor Benn Drug Fight Struggle 00:08:09
He wants you to try and move on from this.
That's his advice, right?
What have you said to him about that?
I just said I need the biggest fight possible, the hardest fight, so that when I beat that person in devastating fashion, there's no questions as to my whole career.
There's no questions.
It's done.
That's what I want to do.
I can't come back.
I don't need no warm-up.
I don't need no easy fight.
I don't need a warm-up to get back into it.
I'm 26 years old.
Give me the best name.
Give me the best.
Have you been training properly?
Of course I have.
I've tried throughout this whole period.
Is it hard to train properly when you're in this mental state?
Now it's fine.
I struggled.
There was probably about two months where I was, yeah, I was in a really bad way.
Did you talk to your dad about it?
I did, but my dad was in a bad way as well.
Why?
Over this?
Over this, yeah.
Yeah, my dad was.
I was in a bad way.
I was sobbing most nights.
I didn't want to go to sleep because I knew what I had to wake up to.
You got me, this is a nightmare for me.
How has this happened?
How have I got in this situation?
My faith let me down.
You feel that?
Oh, yeah, 100%.
Yeah.
Let me bring in your dad.
He's been listening to this.
He's over in Sydney.
Nigel, I've not talked to you for a long time.
We used to have a few dinners together.
It's good to see you.
I've got three sons all in their 20s, actually, one of whom is Connor's age.
And I can't imagine many tougher things for a father to have to deal with than listening to your son talking in such a profoundly emotional and upsetting way about feeling suicidal in the last few weeks and months since all this went down.
How does that first of all make you feel as a father to hear this?
I'll tell you what, Pierce, I was actually in the same position as my son.
I was really struggling as well for myself.
I don't really drink.
Every night, I was drinking like half a bottle of red wine a night on medication.
And yeah, we both were in a darn, dark, dark place because to me, it looks like this is a witch hunt.
It's like we're going back to the 1800s.
She, the witchy, the witchy, the witch burner, burner.
And it's like, I think, yeah, burner, burner.
I think, hold on a minute.
That's my son.
And one thing is, Piers, if I ever thought my son was guilty or really sick, mate, I'd say, son, I love you, but you know what?
You've got to deal with this on your own, mate.
I'd hang him out to dry.
But I was actually in this training camp with him, Piers.
I was training with him.
I would say on that, that there are lots of benefits to being the son of somebody famous.
And I've had this conversation with my sons.
But there are also disadvantages.
Connor will get an irrational amount of attention because he's your son.
I don't understand why if there's this compelling dossier of 270 pages of material, why not make that public and why not give it to the British boxing board?
Okay.
Listen, I agree with you, Piers, but the same way I feel that they're David McConnor and not these other fighters is the same way they dealt with me.
Listen, Nigel, I understand your passion.
I understand Connor's passion.
But I also think if you've gone to all this trouble to draw up this massive dossier of evidence and the British boxing board is asking for it, I don't understand how it can be anything but bad for your case if you don't hand it over.
I mean, at the very least, call their bluff.
Say, right, here you are.
Get them to respond to it.
I don't know why, if I was in your position, that's what I would do.
You're like your father.
You are your own man, right?
You are.
And if you wanted to, you could put this out there tonight.
Yeah, I still don't think that proves my innocence at all.
I've just been cleared by the organization, which the test in which I failed.
I don't understand why you wouldn't want to counter that agenda by making public this dossier.
Because I don't know what it is they got in for me.
I don't know what vendetta it is.
It's like saying you're accused of killing someone.
I've been proven innocent by the authorities that run that test.
I wouldn't say you've been proven innocent.
They just couldn't.
Just give me the clear.
They said there was no conclusive evidence.
Just to be clear, exactly what they said, right?
It's not an absolutely unequivocal, you're definitely innocent, but it's certainly not unhelpful.
I've seen sportsmen come back from this when they've gone through the process.
Nigel.
Yeah, I do agree with you.
I don't know what the legal side of it, but yeah, me personally, I know I love my son, you know, and I know for a fact that he's an innocent man.
Nigel, as a, again, as speaking as a father now, you know, Connor talked very movingly about, you know, sobbing every night while talking to you.
You're in Australia, the other part of the world.
You know, the time zones, you're drinking, you're feeling terrible too.
Those conversations must be some of the most painful you've ever had in your life, right?
What did you say to Connor in those conversations to try and stop him from, as he put it, you know, considering taking his life?
I'll be honest with you, Piv, it was like I come home here because I was with Connor for five months.
I wasn't here.
I was in England with him.
So while he was going through this period, like I was there with him.
I'd stay until January and then after, then my mum died.
So I had so much pressure on me.
And I was just a mess.
And so I was an actually really good for Connor because actually I was trying to directly be strong.
But there again, it was like while he was out, you know, he was dealing with his own issues.
I was trying to deal with mine.
And we struggled.
And we struggled.
We both got through it together.
Thank God.
Nigel, I've got to wrap it, unfortunately.
What I would say to you, Connor, is I feel that you're in a lot of pain about this.
That's clear.
And I'm extremely sorry you've been going through what you've been going through because nobody should ever feel that way.
And it's awful.
And the court of public opinion on social media can be particularly brutal.
I've experienced myself.
It's a very, very unpleasant thing.
But I also think you can turn that around.
But ultimately, this may be down to you, deciding what you want to do with your life and your future and your career.
I mean, what is the dream for you out of this hell?
Just back fighting.
The fighting's the easy part.
The fight.
This has been the hardest fight I've ever had to face.
The fighting's the easy part.
That's another born fighter.
It's in my blood.
Well, Connor, I wish you well in pursuing this.
I'm not going to make a judgment until it's all concluded.
You know, the facts are what they are as we know them, but the facts can develop.
You know, if there is genuinely new information which exonerates you, my advice is get it out there.
Thank you.
So thank you very much.
And Nigel, I appreciate you joining me from Australia.
It's very early over there.
And I thank you also for your candor.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
And Tony, Connor, get that thing off his top lid.
Well, that is a problem.
I agree.
Yeah.
Some things fathers can't just get the sons to do.
All my sons have weird facial hair.
It's got to stop.
I agree.
Hey, good to talk to you, Nigel.
It's been a while and I appreciate you joining me.
Well, next tonight, lock up your Disney princesses, the so-called dreaded sensitivity readers.
They're coming for them.
We'll discuss that after the break.
Well, welcome back.
Joining me, I talked to you contributor to Esther Kraken, Associate Editor of the Daily Mirror, Kevin Maguire.
Disney Princess Sensitivity Readers 00:05:34
So some extraordinary interview with Connor Ben there, because I don't know whether he's telling me the truth or not.
How can I know?
Only he really knows.
He's failed these two drug tests and he's pleading with us to think he's not that kind of guy.
The problem I have with these sort of interviews, Kevin, is that, I mean, pretty much every sporting cheat, that's the kind of thing they say when they get caught.
Yeah, Lance Armstrong, Ben Johnson back in the day, Shane Warne, actually, who did rebuild his career.
See, I think you fail one, fail two.
Sorry, it's becoming a coincidence here.
But if you have evidence, you've got to publish that evidence.
Well, that's the bit I don't get.
He kept telling me, I've got all the evidence.
I've got this dossier.
I said, well, give it to the...
Yeah, exactly.
Give it to the governing body because, or at the very least, publish it.
Let the media see it, right?
And then they can decide.
I mean, he's reacting very emotionally, clearly, because obviously this is his career on hold at the peak of his career, 26.
And I understand that.
But, you know, there was a lot of kind of blaming not himself.
And I just think you are a very talented, very elite sportsman.
You are surrounded by an elite team.
You could say that, oh, someone gave me a pill and I didn't know what it was and they were qualified, so I just took it.
But at the end of the day, I'm assuming that might be in the dossier or if he has evidence.
Well, what is bizarre is the World Boxing Council, the WBC, they issued this report saying, look, they can't prove that he deliberately ingested this thing, but they did say they believed it was in his body.
He doesn't even accept that.
They even gave him a get-out.
They said, look, it could be too many eggs.
This got ridiculed.
But there was a WBC offering him a kind of alibi for why this might be in his body, which he has just completely rejected.
Now, either that is the response of a lunatic, in other words, you're being given a get-out here, or it's the response of somebody who genuinely believes he's been aggrieved here.
Yeah, or he's been badly advised.
Yeah.
And maybe that's the third option.
I don't know that, but it could be, because they were bending over backwards, to be fair.
Yeah, they were.
And he thinks he's the victim of a conspiracy theory.
He thinks someone is conspiring against him at the peak of his career.
And I'm like, okay, fine, but you have the evidence that you're clean.
I don't think he's got any chance of clearing his name unless he hands that dossier to the Beautiful Control and publishes it simultaneously.
That's all I would do.
It's Chris Eubang Jr., I really feel sorry for...
Completely lost the fight if it didn't take place.
Yeah, I agree.
Let's turn to, well, first of all, sensitivity readers raising their ugly heads once.
I don't know who these people are, but you just know they're ugly.
First they came for Roald Dahl.
Then they came for James Bond.
Now they're coming for fairy tales, which apparently are too offensive and need to be changed.
Well, Lady Bird books are said to be examining tales like Cinderella and Snow White.
So Cinderella won't be assuming the prince uses he or him pronouns.
It could be non-binary, handsome prince and beautiful princess.
Well, they're out too, because that could make young readers think that all that matters in life is being attractive, God forbid.
And don't you dare have old, ugly villains, because that's ageist.
So you can't be beautiful.
You can't be ugly.
You can't be a villain.
You can't, we know, already be fat, you can only be enormous.
This is all ridiculous, isn't it?
I mean, I am deeply offended because this is Disney and I love Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty and all of these stories growing up.
I just think, what is the point?
Why are you rewriting an author's vision?
Because it goes far.
You can disagree with the ideology.
You can disagree with calling a princess beautiful.
But who is offended by this?
But you don't get to rewrite it.
But as to who's offended, who are these people?
Fat people.
Who are these absolute Cretans out there?
Who think, you know what?
The thing about Cinderella is it's offensive.
Shut up.
Go away.
Go back under the crawl you came out of.
Sensitivity readers, they should all be banned, fired, sent away.
Ah, hang on.
Hang on.
You wouldn't say Agatha Christese and then they were non.
Would go back to its old title of 10 little and then use the N-word.
So you accept the principle there is a line that is crossed so that you can see it.
Okay, I'll accept that.
I'll accept that.
There is a line, because I don't think it should be completely everything should be published the way it used to be, if, for example, it has the N-word and a type.
I get that, right?
Although some people don't.
Some people think you should just stick rigidly to how they originally publish it.
But I can accept there might be very, very few exceptions.
When you start getting into whether a prince might be non-binary, this is complete nonsense.
It is.
Even though you are awoke.
Even me, and I kind of think books should, by and large, stand as they were written.
But I read books to my grandkids and they're bought by their parents, my daughter and her husband.
And they're very different to the books we read to our kids, I read to my daughter.
And I can see, perhaps people aren't buying them anymore.
Perhaps if you're Ladybird, you've got to repeal to a new market.
So it's a commercial pressure.
Because this market is a tiny market of people.
Honestly, who do you meet in the real world who thinks this way?
I didn't meet these people.
I mean, I think, to be honest, there's a part of it.
I try.
I go out in the street.
Are you a woke imbecile?
Where are you?
Are you feeling oversensitive today?
Does a ladybird book upset you?
I think they're trolling us.
I think the point where they talk about the prince being non-binary, I think they're trolling us to an extent.
Ridiculous.
We're talking trolling us.
Hancock Triumph Incompetence Critique 00:02:01
Matt Hancock.
So in the Telegraph lockdown files, which are endlessly sort of riveting and entertaining in equal measure and horrifying, of course, he emerges exactly how I thought he would, which is it's basically all about Matt Hancock.
And we actually, we saw one message today in the coverage where he's talking about the vaccine rollout, desire for a turbo boost for it.
I called for this two months ago, he messages on WhatsApp to his team.
This is a Hancock triumph.
He's talking about himself.
I mean, what is he doing here?
And then he's furious that Alec Sharma might go on TV, which, given how appalling Alec Sharma was on TV, I don't blame him for being.
A pity I'm not in the commons.
I should do a clip.
I should definitely do the rounds tomorrow.
It must not be Alec because Alloc might get some credit.
It's pathetic.
I mean, he is, he has no self-awareness.
I think that, I mean, we're able to establish that.
But this just shows the extent of his narcissism because he actually felt like he was a victim of a privacy breach because he was caught heavy petting a lady he was cheating on his wife with.
And then he got these messages were released and he thinks he's part of a conspiracy to breach his privacy.
And now he believes that he should get credit for everything.
It seems to be some sort of miniature.
Well, the one thing, Kevin, which emerges from this as a sort of conclusion is nothing constitutes a Hancock triumph.
No, no, no.
I mean, he is the man who put the cock into Hancock as health secretary.
And I think he just shows himself to be thin-skinned, incompetent, chaotic, and attention-seeking because he wants attention for his triumphs when they don't exist.
And none of that would have really mattered if he hadn't been health secretary at the time of COVID.
And people weren't dying in large numbers.
Yeah, in care homes and elsewhere.
You're in a care home.
The words Hancock triumph are not being used.
No, his protective ring was not a protective ring at all.
Guys, got to leave it there.
Thank you very much indeed.
Enjoyed seeing you.
That's it from me.
Whatever you're up to, keep it uncensored.
Good night.
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