Piers Morgan in front of Twitter blue bird logo in front of light blue background

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‘1K RTs and I’ll leak DMs’: Hackers seize control of Piers Morgan’s Twitter, threaten to release private messages

Morgan's email address was posted on a hacking forum last week.

 

Claire Goforth

Tech

Posted on Dec 27, 2022   Updated on Dec 27, 2022, 10:18 am CST

Piers Morgan is notorious for controversial public statements. The bad boy of broadcasting has earned ire for trolling Larry King after his death, calling former President Donald Trump’s proposed COVID-19 cures “batshit crazy,” and complaining about Daniel Craig carrying his infant in a papoose—which earned Morgan a pie to the face.

Morgan’s recent attention-grabbing tweets are no fault of his own. Overnight, hackers took over his Twitter account. Reports indicate they had control of his account for roughly an hour. During that time they fired off a series of offensive and bizarre tweets on subjects ranging from Queen Elizabeth to Morgan’s genitals.

“Get a fucking haircut you ugly bum @BorisJohnson,” read one that tagged the former British prime minister. Another said, “Fuck the queen.”

Screenshots and archives of the tweets reveal that several included offensive slurs and content, including NSFW comments about Morgan and other celebrities. One said that he was “currently sucking” on polarizing podcaster Andrew Tate’s balls.

“1K [retweets] and I’ll leak DMs with high [profile] celebrities,” one said. Another read, “Like this tweet if yall wanna see Piers Morgan’s little cock.”

https://www.twitter.com/JUNlPER/status/1607595107133587457

These tweets were viewed hundreds of thousands of times and shared by thousands of Twitter users.

It’s unknown whether the incidents are related, but Morgan’s email address was reportedly among a trove of celebrities’ personal information that was recently published by hacking group the Chuckling Squad. The Chuckling Squad is best known for one of its members hacking Twitter founder Jack Dorsey’s account in 2019.

Whoever hacked Morgan’s account changed his bio to “CHUCKLING SQUAD” and location to “chuckle land.” One of the tweets said, “Chuckling Squad on Top.”

Many reveled in Morgan falling victim to hackers because he has been implicated in phone hacking scandals from his time as editor of the Daily Mirror. Morgan has consistently denied knowledge of his reporters hacking phones.

“Let’s be real Piers Morgan getting hacked on Twitter just got a taste of his own medicine, he was the one behind the whole Daily Mirror phone hacking scandal,” @Beno_ldn commented. “Karma is a bitch.”

Early Tuesday morning, Morgan’s son confirmed that his father had been hacked.

Someone appears to have taken control of the account from the hackers. Morgan’s bio, avatar, and cover photo are currently blank and none of his 150,000 tweets are visible. You can still view his likes, which include some of the hacked tweets.

It’s unknown whether Morgan or Twitter regained control of the account.

Some are questioning whether the hacker(s) would’ve been able to maintain access to Morgan’s account for so long if Elon Musk hadn’t fired thousands of staff after buying the company.

“Piers Morgan has been hacked for at least 50 minutes now. Hard to imagine it would’ve lasted this long for such a high profile account before Musk fired everybody,” reporter Matt Novak wrote.

Twitter didn’t respond to request for comment sent via email Tuesday morning.

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*First Published: Dec 27, 2022, 9:46 am CST