Piers Morgan lashes out at ‘attention-seeking’ Alan Cumming for returning OBE
Piers Morgan has lashed out at Alan Cumming following the actor’s OBE announcement.
The Scottish actor, who was handed the title as a part of the Queen’s birthday honours in 2009, revealed on Friday (27 January) that he recently returned the award.
Cumming, who has US in addition to British citizenship, mentioned that whereas receiving the OBE for providers to the humanities and LGBTQ+ activism made him “very proud to be British, and galvanised as an American”, latest public conversations concerning the monarchy and British empire have modified his notion.
“The Queen’s dying and the following conversations concerning the function of monarchy and particularly the way in which the British empire profited on the expense (and dying) of indigenous peoples internationally actually opened my eyes,” he wrote on Instagram.
The 58-year-old continued: “Additionally, fortunately, instances and legal guidelines within the US have modified, and the nice good the award delivered to the LGBTQ+ trigger again in 2009 is now much less potent than the misgivings I’ve being related to the toxicity of empire (OBE stands for Officer of the British Empire).”
“So I returned my award, defined my causes and reiterated my nice gratitude for being given it within the first place. I’m now again to being plain previous Alan Cumming once more.”
Broadcaster Morgan hit out at Cumming’s choice, writing on Twitter: “What a pathetic, disingenuous, disloyal, attention-seeking little twerp.”
Nevertheless, Cumming’s followers have heaped praised on the actor, who not too long ago hosted The Traitors US, which is out there to stream on BBC iPlayer.
He is not the first performer to return his OBE. In December 2020, Welsh actor Michael Sheen shared a statement revealing that he too had handed back his honour.
Sheen defined that he’d undertaken intensive analysis into Welsh historical past after he was requested to talk on the Studying and Work Institutes annual Raymond William Memorial Lecture in November 2017.
“I bear in mind sitting there going, ‘Nicely I’ve a alternative: I both don’t give this lecture and maintain on to my OBE or I give this lecture and I’ve to offer my OBE again,’” he mentioned.
Sheen mentioned that he’d quietly given the award again as he realised he would have been a “hypocrite” have been he to maintain it and nonetheless give the lecture about “the character of the connection between Wales and the British state, and the historical past of it”.
Discover a full ist of celebrites who rejected OBEs here.