News

Piers Morgan clashes with presenter Matt Johnson in mental health row

They had different views on Piers' remarks

Piers Morgan has called presenter Matt Johnson a “virtue-signalling little [expletive]” in a Twitter rant over mental health.

Welsh telly star Matt, 35, branded Piers a “sham and a fear-mongering fraud” after Piers called for a mental health overhaul on Wednesday’s Good Morning Britain as they discussed Mental Health Awareness Day.

During the show, Piers suggested that the phrase “mental health” should be scrapped and people should start calling it “mental strength” to teach kids “the power of resilience”.

Piers Morgan and Susanna Reid on GMB
Piers suggested that the phrase “mental health” should be changed to “mental strength” (Credit: ITV)

Read more: Piers Morgan defends Strictly’s Seann Walsh over Katya Jones kiss

Piers suggested there is too much “mollycoddling” in schools and a “lack of training to be resilient”.

He said: “I don’t want to say things that sound inflammatory for the sake of it. Mental strength might be a nice way of attacking this.

Matt Johnson at the UK premiere of 'The House With The Clock In Its Walls'
Matt slammed Piers’ views on mental health (Credit: Wenn)

“Rather than it being ‘health’ and people thinking doctors and medicine but you actually encourage kids to develop mental strength when they’re dealing with regular life stuff.”

Piers continued: “I’m not talking about serious things – clearly some people have genuine problems that need to be dealt with and treated, but some people have this anxiety and it seems to me there’s this lack of training to be resilient.”

He later tweeted: “I think it’s time to change the language on ‘mental health’. Let’s start using the phrase ‘mental strength’, and teach our kids the power of resilience.”

However, Matt didn’t agree and replied: “Hi all. Piers isn’t an expert. He isn’t educated at all when it comes to serious issues like mental health.

“He says uninformed and idiotic things like this all the time for likes & retweets. If you think he cares about you, he doesn’t. He’s a sham and a fear-mongering fraud.”

It wasn’t long before Piers hit back, calling Matt a rather unpleasant name.

He wrote: “Hi all. Matt’s a virtue-signalling little [expletive].”

And the war of words didn’t stop there as Matt went on to call Piers a “tiny old man”.

He wrote: “Haha. *Virtue-signalling claxon* You don’t know what that means. Change the record tiny old man, I see straight through you.”

Matt later tweeted to his followers: “There’s clearly a lot more to do when it comes to awareness and education.”

Piers’ co-star Susanna Reid also weighed in on the argument and appeared to agree with Piers’ tweet by retweeting it to her own account.

She also tweeted: “Mental Health. Lots of talk about the “right” & “wrong” way to speak about it. May I venture there’s no monopoly on good advice?

“What works for one (resilience) may not for another (compassion). But we don’t help by saying that one or the other shouldn’t be said.”

Read more: Piers Morgan insults Gary Lineker in homework debate

She also shared a video from international speaker Brian Wood, who opened up about his mental health issues due to being a solider in Iraq.

Susanna wrote: “When strong men speak out it has a huge impact. Respect to you for all your courage.”

What do you think of Piers’ comments? Leave us a comment on our Facebook page @EntertainmentDailyFix and let us know what you think.


Rebecca Carter
Associate Editor (News)

Related Topics