Piers Morgan needs to woman up after ‘experiencing the pain of childbirth’ live on air

The GMB host had not previously been convinced about how difficult and painful labour really is, so he volunteered to be hooked up to an electronic childbirth simulator on the ITV breakfast show on Wednesday morning.

• Notorious GMB: Piers Morgan on Donald Trump, Twitter rivals and serial killers
• Richard Madeley swears – twice – and insults a children’s choir in triumphant return to GMB
• Listen to the RadioTimes.com Podcast now: subscribe on iTunes / subscribe on Google Podcasts

In the clip below, Morgan lasts a grand total of five minutes before calling it quits, screaming: “That’s enough!”

https://twitter.com/piersmorgan/status/1126021420415356928

By the time the ordeal was over, it’s fair to say Morgan had gained a newfound respect for mothers. “Every man should try that,” he said, adding that it had been “utter agony”.

“It was very enlightening,” confessed Morgan. “I will certainly make no more glib jokes about childbirth. That was, wow, that was excruciating.”

But as columnist Kirsty Strickland helpfully explained, being attached to the simulator for a short time would only have given Morgan a very general idea of what childbirth is really like – and for a matter of just minutes rather than hours.

https://twitter.com/KirstyStricklan/status/1125852943583010816

Morgan has been criticised in the past for his use of the phrase "man up", which he employed following his return to work with an injury, but also controversially in reference to people's approach to their struggles with mental illness, having tweeted in 2017 that Britain needs to “man up” on the issue.

https://twitter.com/piersmorgan/status/904389024697200643

https://twitter.com/piersmorgan/status/862233844270989312

Nice, then, to see him forced to "woman up" himself – if only for a few precious minutes.