Piers Morgan: he is on the verge of signing a £5.5m deal to replace veteran interviewer Larry King. Photograph: Rex Features
In the paparazzi shots, Piers Morgan stands beside his statuesque new wife Celia Walden, dressed in a pale blue suit and wearing the self-satisfied expression of a man who can't quite believe how well life has turned out.
Who can blame him? Six years ago, the former Daily Mirror editor was sacked for running fake pictures of British troops "abusing" Iraqi prisoners. Now he is on the verge of signing a £5.5m deal to replace veteran interviewer Larry King on the US news network CNN. If it goes through, he will be the first British interviewer to make it big in the US since Sir David Frost. (Although perhaps he shouldn't count his chickens just yet: a recent poll for the celebrity website People.com on who should replace Larry King placed him fifth out of five, with just 11%.)
The paparazzi pictures were taken last weekend at a party to celebrate his recent marriage to Walden, a Daily Telegraph journalist; the guests, who included Amanda Holden, Emily Maitlis, Sarah Brown and Alastair Campbell, dined on hog roast, fish and chips, and kebabs.
It was also a farewell party: Morgan will move to New York if the CNN deal is signed, and industry sources insist that will happen within days.
One guest describes the occasion as "tasteful". "There were no champagne fountains or anything like that," he says. It was only lavish, he adds, in the sense that the drink didn't run out and the setting was rather grand.
source:www.guardian.co.uk.com
