Piers Morgan Gets His First Walk-Out

By Alex Weprin 

On his show tonight, CNN’s Piers Morgan will have his first guest walk-out. Former Delaware Republican Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell walked out on Morgan after he asked her about her thoughts on gay marriage. She was appearing on the program to promote her new book:

Morgan’s predecessor, Larry King, saw his fair share of walk-outs during his 25-year career at the cable channel.

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CNN and Morgan’s staff clearly saw a viral video in the making, and posted the clip of O’Donnell’s walkout shortly after it happened earlier this evening. Morgan also spoke to B&C editor Ben Grossman about the incident:

Morgan admitted he was totally caught off guard by what happened. In fact, the two had actually met under very friendly terms in the past. They had breakfast together in New York before his show started, a meeting that was arranged by Morgan’s representation, John Ferriter of Octagon. At the time Ferriter was working with O’Donnell on a few potential television opportunities.

That is part of the reason Morgan says he was so baffled by her reaction.

“From an interviewing standpoint, I don’t think there was anything that would constitute rudeness,” he said. “The issue of gay marriage is clearly significant in the wake of (the popularity of) Michelle Bachmann. I wasn’t asking about to it to be outrageous, I just assumed she would have a standard answer for it since she wrote about it in her book. It was bizarre.”

Morgan also appeared on “AC360” at 8 PM to talk about the walk-out, and he invited O’Donnell to appear live on his program Thursday to talk about the walkout. Will his show see any sort of ratings bump? We will find out tomorrow.

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