Piers Morgan attacks CBS for airing Woody Allen interview after Sharon Osbourne The Talk exit

Morgan branded US network the ‘Cowardly Broadcasting System’

Piers Morgan has once again hit out at CBS following Sharon Osbourne’s departure from The Talk.

On Friday (26 March), it was announced that the presenter was leaving the US chat show after 11 years after she attracted criticism for defending Morgan on air amid the controversy over Morgan’s comments about Meghan Markle’s mental health.

CBS stated that Osbourne had decided to leave after a review found that the heated debate about racism with her co-host Sheryl Underwood from earlier in the month “did not align with our values for a respectful workplace”.

Morgan originally came to Osbourne’s defence, claiming that she had been “bullied out of her job”, but has now criticised CBS again in his MailOnline column published on Monday (29 March).

Morgan referenced a 2017 segment on The Talk in which Underwood defended comedian George Lopez for joking on stage that there’s a rule in the Latino community that you “don’t marry somebody Black” and calling a Black woman a “b****”.

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“What a load of sanctimonious, two-faced twaddle,” Morgan wrote of CBS’s statement.

“So, it’s OK for Sheryl Underwood to passionately defend someone who spews racist abuse at a black woman, but it’s not OK for Sharon Osbourne to passionately defend someone who didn’t?”

He continued: “This is such an outrageous double standard. And how can it even be happening in a country so proud of its First Amendment constitutional right to free speech?”

Branding CBS the “Cowardly Broadcasting System” for “[bowing] to the woke mob”, he also condemned the network for airing an interview with Woody Allen on Sunday (28 March), in which the director once again proclaimed his innocence against allegations of historic sexual abuse by his adopted daughter Dylan Farrow.

“When it comes to the company’s ‘values’, this is the same CBS which has just given a platform to shamed film director Woody Allen to dismiss serious sex abuse allegations made by his daughter Dylan,” Morgan wrote.

“They seem to specialise in allowing people to peddle THEIR version of the truth without any regard for what THE truth may be... Every journalist and commentator in America should be as incensed as I am about this, because they could all be next.”

The Independent has contacted CBS for comment.