English broadcaster Piers Morgan issued a public clarification on November 28, 2025, soon after a viral clip from his recent interview with Tucker Carlson sparked major debate over his refusal to repeat a homophobic slur on air. The media personality addressed the controversy directly on X, responding to the claims that he had avoided saying the word "f*ggot" out of fear of legal consequences in the UK. In his X post, Piers Morgan stated:“This clip has been wrongly interpreted… as I told Tucker, I wouldn’t say it because I think it’s an offensive derogatory slur against gay people, not because I was too scared in case someone arrested me… I wouldn’t say the N-word for the same reason.”Piers Morgan @piersmorganLINKThis clip has been wrongly interpreted… as I told Tucker, I wouldn’t say it because I think it’s an offensive derogatory slur against gay people, not because I was too scared in case someone arrested me… I wouldn’t say the N-word for the same reason.The exchange between Piers Morgan and Tucker Carlson took place on November 27, 2025, as the former appeared on the Tucker Carlson Network. The interview touched on free-speech laws in the United Kingdom, recent hate-speech prosecutions, and broader cultural debates.Piers Morgan and Tucker Carlson’s on-air exchange in detailDuring the interview, Carlson confronted Morgan with a direct challenge. The American political commentator referred to a recent case involving a 34-year-old woman alleged to have used a slur in text messages. Citing this case to question the UK's speech restrictions, he asked Morgan:“Would you say the word ‘f*ggot’ on camera?”Morgan responded simply:“No.”Carlson pressed:“Why? You don’t want to get arrested, do ya?”Morgan rejected that reasoning. He said he was not afraid of arrest, but that he did not wish to use the slur, describing it as “derogatory.” He argued there was no need to use hateful language to make any point.Carlson, in turn, responded by using the slur himself, saying: “F*ggot? I just did,” and then repeating “f*ggot, f*ggot, f*ggot” several times. He said he was doing so to make the point that certain words have been turned into a “magic word” that are socially forbidden.Morgan challenged Carlson’s use of the word, saying that even in heated debates about gender, identity, or women’s rights, there was no justification for “sliding into actually saying derogatory stuff.”Toward the end of the exchange, Morgan summed up his position, remarking:“I’m allowed to [say it] but I don’t want to.” Earlier in the discussion, Piers Morgan admitted there was a “massive rising issue with the suppression of free speech.” Carlson had attempted to support that claim by citing a statistic, claiming that arrests for “speech crimes” in the UK were three times as many as in Russia under Vladimir Putin.Morgan rejected the comparison, suggesting that living under Putin made free speech even more dangerous. However, both men mentioned that the word “f*ggot” was an “ugly word.” Carlson claimed he had never used it to demean a gay person. He said:“The only people I ever use the word f*ggot are gay. Ever. Just like the only people who say the ‘N-word’ are Black. Period.”Piers Morgan rejected Carlson’s framing and declined to join him in normalising the slur.