Celia Walden is the wife of Piers Morgan, the English broadcaster and journalist, and mother to his youngest child. Celia is a British lifestyle columnist, author, critic, and journalist.
Celia Walden is known for her no-holds-barred approach to breaking stories and has built quite a reputation around her strong and sometimes uncomfortable opinions. The journalist is regarded as the perfect match for Piers, and she has shown time and again how capable she is of standing up to him – or anyone else for that matter. Celia’s work has seen her take some pretty unconventional stances that have led to backlash from the public, but if there is anything we know about her, it’s that she isn’t one to back down easily.
Celia Walden’s Biography Summary
- Full Name: Celia Pughe Morgan (née Walden)
- Gender: Female
- Date of Birth: 8 December 1975
- Celia Walden’s Age: 48 Years Old
- Alma Mater: Westminster School, Cambridge University.
- Ethnicity: Caucasian
- Nationality: British
- Zodiac Sign: Sagittarius
- Marital Status: Married
- Celia Walden’s Husband: Piers Morgan
- Celia Walden’s Parents: George Walden and Sarah Hunt
- Number of Celia Walden’s Siblings: 3
- Famous For: Editor of the Daily Telegraph
- Celia Walden’s Instagram: @celia.walden
- Twitter: @celia_walden
Celia Walden Comes From An Influential British Family
Celia Pughe Morgan (nee Walden) was born in Paris, France on the 8th of December, in 1975 to George Walden and Sarah Hunt. Although the future novelist was born in the French capital, she was raised in the famous city of London in England alongside her two siblings; Francis and Oliver. She also had most of her formal education there. First, she attended the Westminster School, and then she had her college education at the Ivy League Cambridge University.
Celia’s mother Sarah is an art historian and daughter of Dr. Thomas Hunt, a physician to notable people in history like Earls Clement Attlee, Anthony Eden, and Winston Churchill. Her father George Gordon Harvey Walden, on the other hand, was a member of the British Parliament with the Conservative Party. He has worked as a journalist, a foreign diplomat to China, and served as the UK’s Minister for Higher Education from 1985 to 1987.
What Does Piers Morgan’s Wife Do?
Celia Walden is primarily a writer and she has a lot of published works to show for it. She was a feature writer and editor for The Daily Telegraph and has also written articles for other newspapers such as the Daily Mail and the Evening Standard. As a novelist, her published works include Harm’s Way (2008) and the largely controversial memoir, Babysitting George, which was released in 2011.
Celia has gone on to write several feature pieces for Glamour, GQ, and The Spectator magazines. In 2020, her latest book called PayDay: The Most Addictive, was released.
Celia’s Journalism Career Has Been Near As Controversy-Filled As That of Her Husband’s
It appears that the Morgans have a family tradition of courting trouble, and they definitely seem unabashed about this fact. Celia herself has been on the public’s bad side one too many times, but the gossip columnist always seems to take it in good stride, and even with a touch of humor sometimes.
During the time Celia was a writer for the Daily Mail, readers of her column, Spy, used to complain that her picture was inappropriate as it showed too much skin. Celia’s response was to ignore them. The picture stayed up until the newspaper diary segment was discontinued.
Another article published in the Daily Telegraph in March 2011 was labeled insensitive by many readers. Celia wrote an impassionate piece about her disgust for cyclists, referring to them as road nuisances. The issue with her article was not her dislike for them per se, it was the fact that the said article was published the same week that a female cyclist had been killed in central London by a heavy goods vehicle. The write-up was vehemently condemned by the Cycling Intelligence website.
Her 2011 memoir, Babysitting George, which centers on the time she spent with footballer George Best, also drew heavy criticisms from both his widow and his former mistress. On one hand, the former Alex Best described the write-up as being “largely fictional” and threatened to slam a lawsuit against Bloomsbury Publishing, the British publishing house that published the book.
On the other hand, The Observer quoted George’s former mistress, Gina Devivo, describing the book as something put together by someone with a very good imagination. She further claimed that what Celia wrote never happened the way she put them, adding that she only spent a few days with the footballer and had no rapport with him whatsoever.
How Did Celia Walden Meet Her Husband, Piers Morgan?
As earlier mentioned, Celia is married to one of Britain’s top television presenters, Piers Morgan, who is particularly known for his strong, and sometimes controversial opinions. Perhaps one of his career highlights remains his time as a presenter on the Good Morning Britain show, a position he held from 2015 until March 2021 when he resigned after an onscreen tirade. Upon his resignation, Morgan went back to The Sun, where he worked in his early career days and took up a position as a columnist.
The story of how these two opinionated people met is quite an interesting one. It is said that they met each other way back in 2006. At the time, Celia was dating (or had just dated) French chef Jean-Christophe Novelli who she’d previously interviewed for the Telegraph while Piers was going through some issues with his then-estranged wife, Marrion Shalloe, a hospital ward sister.
In a Heart FM interview with Amanda Holden, Piers went down memory lane and explained that he had first met his second wife in a hotel. The 59-year-old revealed that he had a speech to present to about a thousand people, and when he messed up his speech, Celia was the only one who laughed at him. In that very strange moment, the British presenter had an epiphany, and right there he knew she was the woman he wanted to marry.
He persevered despite initial rebuffs from Celia, and now they are happily married, much to the surprise of some people. The couple tied the knot in a private wedding ceremony on June 24, 2010, after dating for over four years. For the ceremony that took place in St. Mary’s church, in the Oxfordshire village of Swinbrook, Celia was dressed in a stunning bohemian dress with a flower crown while Piers looked dapper in a suit and tie.
Even though the couple’s phonebook, for sure, is filled with the contacts of their celebrity friends, none of them was present at the wedding ceremony. The duo chose to keep their guest list small with only close friends and family in attendance. After the ceremony, Celia and Piers headed to a nearby pub for their reception in an open-roof vintage Rolls Royce.
What is the Age Difference Between Celia Walden and Piers Morgan?
Celia and her husband have a lengthy 10-year age gap between them. However, neither Morgan nor his wife appears to be bothered about it, as they appear to relate as equals in their relationship. In fact, Celia’s only response to the age difference between her and her husband has been to troll him on social media.
The 48-year-old former ‘The Spy’ columnist uploaded a beach photo of both of them on her Instagram; one in which she was clad in a black bikini looking extremely toned, while Piers had been edited to look much older – white beards and all. She captioned the hilarious photo with an equally comic write-up saying, “they told me I’d wake up married to an old man one day. I just thought we had more time.”
From the rapport between the couple, their age difference seems to be a non-issue, as they are too busy looking for ways to take steady jabs at each other. A couple that trolls together stays together!!
Do Piers Morgan and Celia Walden Have Children Together?
Exactly a year after their wedding, in June 2011, Morgan excitedly announced on air that he and Celia were expecting their first child together. The child finally arrived on November 25, 2011. Elise Pughe-Morgan is the couple’s only child, and Piers Morgan’s overall fourth child and only daughter. The 12-year-old has often been described as “cheeky” and according to Celia, she knows how to “put” Morgan “in his place”.
Piers also has three other adult sons from his previous marriage to Marion Shalloe. They got married in 1991 and 13 years later, they got separated but before then, their union had already produced three sons named Spencer, Stanley, and Albert. Celia has opened up about how she relates with her stepsons, saying, “all those people who told me being a stepmom would have its rewards were right.” This could only mean that she gets along quite well with them after all.
The Couple Is Still Going Strong Over A Decade Later
Celia Walden and Pier Morgan have enjoyed more than ten years of blissful marriage and counting, and it seems like trolling each other is their love language. They share lots of jokes together and are usually seen cheekily making a mockery of each other on social media. One of such occasions was at the beginning of June 2021 when Celia begged anyone to give her husband a job following his departure from Good Morning Britain.
Speaking to The Sun, the writer described being married to Morgan as “one very long eye roll”, adding that what people didn’t know about him was that he’s often very quiet at home. This, she explained, was due to the fact that he’d have exhausted himself at work before going home. “This is the only reason I am sad about him leaving GMB — well, that and the fact I wake up and there he is, staring back at me morning after morning,” Celia joked. She went further to say that it was unfortunate that Piers has gotten back all his energy, adding, “Please, someone, just give him a job!”
In celebration of their 10th wedding anniversary in 2020, Piers made an Instagram post where he wrote that his wife got lucky. Just like her husband, Celia also posted a light-hearted message on social media that says that once in every century, the perfect couple comes along and redefines other couples’ view of love. “We are totally not that couple. Happy 10th anniversary, Piers.”
Marking their 11th anniversary on June 24, 2021, the couple, in their usual manner, seized the opportunity to make fun of each other. Celia Walden shared a throwback picture of the day they first met in 2005, joking that she was so unimpressed with Piers that she was even unsure if she wanted to take a picture with him. Piers also took to his Instagram to post another throwback picture which he and Celia took some months after their first meeting. He joked about what his then-future wife was wearing, calling her a lucky lady.
Their marriage life has certainly raised some eyebrows but they’ve managed to keep at it. On one occasion in 2019 when Morgan unabashedly claimed he was sexually attracted to his former Good Morning Britain co-host, Susanna Reid, many thought his statement would infuriate his wife.
Piers had claimed that if he and Susanna were both single, they’d “be at it like stoats in a sack”. Rather than infuriating Celia, she was only unimpressed by her husband’s boastful tactics. This proved that their relationship had really grown beyond what many think.
