'You can't say that': Piers Morgan slammed for 'racist' mimicking of Chinese advert

Piers Morgan has been branded “racist” after he appeared to mock a Chinese milk ad live on air.

The Good Morning Britain host defended his mimicking of the Chinese language on the ITV show on Tuesday as he and co-host Susanna Reid discussed a milk ad which features the Queen’s eldest grandson Peter Phillips.

After hearing the advert, Morgan tries to replicate the opening sentence, saying: “ching chang cho jo”.

Reid quickly tries to remonstrate with Morgan over his remarks.

“You can’t say that. Taking the Mickey out of foreign languages is rather 1970s,” she quips.

But an animated Morgan was defiant in his response, suggesting it was more than acceptable.

“Surely you can take the Mickey out of it! He’s using ‘ching chang chong’ milk from the Chinese state – that’s what they said in the advert!” he argues.

Reid then puts her hand to her head in disbelief.

Morgan continues, suggesting people should be more concerned over the Royal family trying to flog Chinese State milk than his imitation.

Social media labels Morgan’s act racist

The segment quickly caused a stir on social media, with users lambasting the former Mirror editor for his behaviour.

“Terrible show of racism – mocking Chinese language live on television,” one person said on Twitter.

“Horrifically ignorant, obnoxious and entirely unnecessary,” another tweeted.

Others said ITV shouldn’t allow such acts to be aired on the show, while others called for companies such as Asda and Microsoft to cease advertising on the channel.

“Shocking that ITV broadcast racist mimicry of the Chinese accent.”

Morgan later took to Twitter to defend his remarks, telling his followers he wasn’t making fun of Chinese people.

“I was mocking a member of the British royal family appearing in an advert for Chinese state milk, not Chinese people,” he said.

However former England soccer player John Barnes, who was famously racially abused when a banana was thrown at him from the crowd during a game, disagreed.

“Understandable if you were simply doing an impression of Peter... not saying ‘ching chang jom’ and mocking the narrator.”

Morgan responded saying the mimicking of other accents was widely accepted, referring to ex-Arsenal striker Ian Wright imitating former Manchester United captain Roy Keane’s Irish accent.

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