Susanna Reid shuts down Piers Morgan over tirade against ‘cretinous’ Love Island

Good Morning Britain presenter Susanna Reid challenged Piers Morgan live on air after he launched a damning tirade on dating show Love Island.

Reid told him he did not what he was talking about when he labelled the programme’s contestants as “cretinous” and then described one – who has yet to even join the ITV2 show – as “particularly dim”.

After watching Tuesday night’s explosive episode, which saw four islanders evicted while unpopular characters Jonny and Tyla were kept on, Morgan told the morning news programme: “I have never seen a more cretinous bunch of people behaving in a more cretinous manner in my entire life – and I work with Richard Arnold.

“I don’t get it? What’s going on? They are the most stupid collection of people.”

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He also tweeted during the episode: “Watching my 1st episode of Love Island. It will also be my last. My brain can’t suffer this kind of damage.”

But Reid dismissed his criticism as insecurity, saying: “He (Morgan) was intimidated by the abs… You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Claiming that she “absolutely loved” the programme, Reid added that she was “learning a lot about relationships” from tuning in.

Morgan continued to perform a toe-curling mimic of an islander and described them as “refuseniks from Celebrity Big Brother who never got onto the show itself”.

“They’ve all been put into this hell-hole designed to basically scramble my brain and turn me into a complete lump of molten porridge,” he added.

Pointing out that Love Island has generated at least two million viewers, Reid told Morgan he was simply “wrong”.

Her frustration with her controversial colleague left Reid apparently exasperated when Morgan then suggested that the BBC should “pull the plug” on children’s show Blue Peter, after a programme repeat reportedly failed to attract a single viewer.

“You don’t… Love Island has two million viewers and you don’t think it should be on air,” she responded.

The argument threatened to send the show into chaos as Morgan confused his announcements, mistakenly introducing the weather instead of the commercial break, and telling co-presenter Arnold not to sit on his mobile phone and “butt call my mother”.