Lots of People Not Happy Piers Morgan Called Ali Racist

Piers Morgan thinks Muhammad Ali was "the greatest superstar icon of my lifetime," but he also thinks the boxer was racist, at least early in his life. "Muhammad Ali said far more inflammatory/racist things about white people than Donald Trump ever has about Muslims. #fact," Morgan tweeted Sunday. He followed that up with a Daily Mail column in which he explained that he's not trying to disrespect Ali, but he was irked by people dumping on Trump after Trump mourned Ali on Twitter and he just wanted "to offer the anti-Trump brigade some historical perspective about their own hero as they vented their collective spleen." He then listed quotes from Ali proving his point, most of which came from Ali's 10-year stint as "frontman" of the Nation of Islam and "were not just outrageously racist but also anti-Semitic, sexist, and homophobic," Morgan wrote. He noted that Ali's views changed as he matured, but his comments are still getting a lot of blowback:

• John Legend and Chrissy Teigen jumped into a Twitter feud with Morgan, Us reports. Quite a few people piled on Morgan on Twitter, leading him to tweet, "I hope people don't make me sound too perfect when I die. No coats of sugar please." Legend's response: "you could test us by announcing your retirement." His wife took it from there, tweeting, "from what? trolling isn't a job (I've tried)," to which Morgan responded, "Maybe I should take up a proper job, like modelling?" Teigen's response: "it keeps me nice and not-racist so sure, give it a go." It got more petty from there, with Teigen eventually tweeting, "my newborn just looked up at me and said 'mommy, why is piers morgan so unequivocally douchy?' i didn't know what to say" and Morgan responding, "My 4 kids all just looked at me and said: 'Daddy, who's Chrissy Teigen?'" before calling Teigen a "ludicrous swimwear accessory."
• Per attn:, other Twitter users "destroyed" Morgan's argument about Ali, like the one who posted, "Rich white men of privilege should have nothing to say about how black Americans responded to Jim Crow." Other sites agree: Uproxx, for example, says Morgan got "owned" by social media users.
• Even Chris Brown got in on the action, BET reports: On Instagram, Brown wrote, "Irrelevant BROADCASTING!!!!! IS ALI RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT????? I CANT WAIT FOR PEOPLE TO WAKE THE F*** UP."
• Morgan got "shot down" again when he discussed his comments on Good Morning Britain on Monday, the Mirror reports. A lawyer on the show pointed out that many of Ali's comments were meant to instill "a sense of pride" in black people: "He was one of the first black people to say being black is beautiful."

(More Piers Morgan stories.)