WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 1
New year, new decade, new start… or perhaps not. My only plan for 2020 is to sit back and laugh as friends make an attention-seeking, virtue-signalling fool of themselves doing #DryJanuary or even worse, #Veganuary.
As Oscar Wilde put it: ‘Good resolutions are simply cheques that men draw on a bank where they have no account.’
I ended 2019 getting joyfully inebriated with mates at my annual end-of-year pub party. ‘Whatever happens in the General Election, and its consequences for bloody Brexit,’ I wrote in the invite, ‘we can all surely come together in a rare moment of national unity and agree we’re all going to need a large drink afterwards?’
Christine Lampard and Holly Willoughby attend Piers Morgan’s Christmas Party in Kensington. ‘The Evening Standard’s front page had a photo of a giggling Holly Willoughby and Christine Lampard and the headline: “Piers’ £4,000 Bollinger bill”‘
Everyone agreed.
Thus, a large gathering of disparate souls convened at my local, the Scarsdale Tavern in Kensington, just before Christmas when all the other festive parties were over. (The best I attended during the year was Rupert Murdoch and Jerry Hall’s soirée, where I spied our newly re-elected Prime Minister – who had hidden in a refrigerator to avoid being interviewed by me on Election eve – scurrying down the stairwell, so I shouted down at him: ‘BORIS! You can come out of the fridge now!’ He stopped, peered up, saw it was me, and chortled, ‘MORGAN! You SCOUNDREL!’ which, coming from him, I took as a compliment.)
First through the door was Emily Maitlis, still basking in the glory of her astonishing Prince Andrew interview scoop.
‘Not been dragged to the Tower yet then?’ I laughed.
‘I get nervous every time the door knocks,’ she chuckled.
James Blunt burst in with a cheeky grin, exclaiming: ‘I’m up for a big one, Piers!’
Soon, the pub was rocking with sporting legends Kevin Pietersen, Chris Robshaw, Gary Lineker and Frank Lampard, my GMB colleagues Susanna Reid, Kate Garraway and Charlotte Hawkins, TV news stars Sophie Raworth, Jeremy Bowen (great to see him on such good form as he continues to fight bowel cancer), Cathy Newman, Christiane Amanpour, Victoria Derbyshire, Kay Burley, Adam Boulton and Mark Austin, pregnant actress Sheridan Smith, former Chancellor George Osborne (now editor of the Evening Standard), I’m A Celebrity… winner Georgia Toffolo, former Miss World Vanessa Ponce, and both Boris’s dad Stanley and his sister Rachel.
Holly Willoughby texted me from her cab: ‘Just had a nightmare and feel terrible asking but I’ve just realised that I’ve come out without my purse. I’m an idiot… can I borrow some money? (I’m sure this exact text will end up in your next column so Hi to your readers).’
Inhibitions swiftly succumbed to flowing alcohol.
I spied Bruno Tonioli, shirt open to his perma-bronzed navel, being subjected to synchronised chest-caressing by singer Katherine Jenkins and my wife Celia. ‘You ladies are barking up the wrong tree,’ I advised.
‘The wrong forest!’ Bruno guffawed.
Sir Tim Rice looked relieved to be there at all, as well he might.
Last year he aborted his appearance at the pub entrance suffering from acute stomach issues, or as he put it later, ‘the bottom suddenly fell out of my world’.
‘My bowels are in great shape, Piers!’ he cried, prompting a few raised eyebrows.
Nigel Farage’s bowels weren’t so healthy.
‘Was taken ill at lunch,’ he texted, ‘sick as a dog. I hate letting you down.’
Another absentee was Caroline Flack, who’s had to resign from presenting Love Island after a domestic incident at her home with her boyfriend Lewis and is now holed up in a hotel to avoid the press. ‘Don’t think I’ll make tonight,’ she messaged. ‘I can’t even leave the hotel, let alone go home. This has been the worst time of my life.’
Chelsea manager Lampard was feeling the heat due to his team’s sudden collapse in form. ‘Is managing harder than playing?’ I asked. ‘Definitely,’ he said. ‘There’s so much more to think about. But I’m enjoying it.’
His next game was against Spurs, where he would face his old boss José Mourinho.
‘The Morgan party magic will turn your fortunes around,’ I assured him.
‘Boris stopped, peered up, saw it was me, and chortled, “MORGAN! You SCOUNDREL!” which, coming from him, I took as a compliment’
By 11pm, the gathering was thinning out when in scurried ITV newsreader Julie Etchingham. ‘Am I too late?’ she exclaimed.
‘Not at all!’ I replied, handing her some Champagne. ‘This party only ends when James Blunt and I leave.’
‘Or when I start to sing!’ Blunt clarified, accurately.
The next morning, I woke to find Kevin Pietersen taunting me on Twitter as ‘a fraud’ for serving Prosecco.
In fact, as I replied, I’d only served Prosecco to him – everyone else got Champagne.
The Evening Standard’s front page had a photo of a giggling Holly Willoughby and Christine Lampard and the headline: ‘Piers’ £4,000 Bollinger bill.’
‘I see you didn’t mention YOU guzzled half of it,’ I texted George Osborne.
‘Editor’s privilege – Omerta,’ he replied.
Blunt emailed: ‘A wonderful, fun, rowdy night. Thank you! Though I was the most famous person there, so if you need some bigger fish next year, give me a shout, and I’ll pull in a Royal [he went to Harry and Meghan’s wedding] or Ed Sheeran.’
Two days later, Chelsea beat Spurs 2-0.
‘Boom Boom Boom,’ messaged Lampard, ‘shows what a mid-week Morgan party can do for you!’
TUESDAY, JANUARY 7
It did even more for another guest. Sky News star Sarah-Jane Mee’s boyfriend Ben Richardson kept trying to get her to leave the party, and she kept saying she wanted to stay.
Eventually, she reluctantly agreed – only for Ben to take her from the pub to Berners Tavern restaurant, where they had first met, and ask her to marry him.
He told Hello! magazine: ‘I was a bit on edge at Piers’s party because I wanted to be proposing but I was in this room with Gary Lineker, James Blunt and Holly Willoughby… it was very surreal.’
Sarah-Jane told me: ‘I was so annoyed he wanted to leave! I love your parties…’
So do I.
Happy New Year.
.