PIERS MORGAN is aware that he’s something of a contradiction. On one hand, having four millionplus Twitter followers and being watched by 19 million viewers during his run on Britain’s Got Talent means he’s as recognisable as some of the celebrities he interviews. Unlike many of those famous faces though, Morgan isn’t keen on delving too deeply into his personal life.

“I actually don’t really talk about too many things in my private life,” explains the 49-year-old, who is back on ITV with a new series of his revealing celebrity interview show, Piers Morgan’s Life Stories. “Not because I think anyone’s got no right to ask me, I just don’t particularly feel comfortable talking about it.

“That may seem odd for someone who specialises in doing that to other people, but other people are more prepared to talk about it than I am,” he explains.

This may be the case, but Morgan – who become one of the youngest national newspaper editors in history after being appointed News Of The World editor aged 29, only to later become the subject of headlines himself when, under his editorship, the Daily Mirror published photos allegedly showing British soldiers abusing an Iraqi prisoner which were then found to be fake – is doing a good job at looking at ease.

He’s a great gossip, punctuating his sentences with name-drops, little reveals and jokes. Not even his friend and former Britain’s Got Talent colleague Simon Cowell is spared. Morgan hasn’t met Cowell’s baby, Eric, yet but jests that he’ll need to soon.

“Well someone’s got to change Eric’s nappies and it’s not going to be his dad,” he says, laughing, before warmly adding that Cowell has never seemed “so calm and happy”.

While many in the public eye are at pains to point out how ordinary they are, Morgan seems to relish reeling off his celebrity encounters. Last week for example, he had a “good chat” with Kim Kardashian (he’s a big fan) and Kanye West at the GQ Awards, and cornered Colin Firth about the rumour that he’s top of the list to play him in a film about the hacking scandal.

“We were laughing because Colin still gets mistaken for me all the time, particularly in America,” Morgan reveals, chuckling. “I do get mistaken for him quite a lot. It’s probably because we’re both about the same height and we talk in vaguely posh accents, and the Americans, in particular, have a large amount of difficulty telling us apart.”

Although Firth would “be the obvious choice” for the role, Sussex-born Morgan wouldn’t mind if another leading man wanted to step in.

“I hear Brad Pitt wants to do it,” he deadpans. “I’d hate you to repeat it.”

Morgan is clearly thick-skinned and spends a lot of time with his tongue planted firmly in his cheek – and he expects his interviewees on Life Stories to be able to hold their own against his questioning.

Such is Morgan’s pluck that many of his famous friends refuse to be interviewed by him. “Michael Caine sent me a hilarious email when I was asked him to do Life Stories saying, ‘Piers, for all the reasons I love watching your show, that’s why I’m not going to do it’, which I thought was great,” he says.

A lifelong Arsenal supporter, Morgan, who splits his time between the UK and the US, would also love to chat to former ‘Gooner’ Thierry Henry on the show.

“I’d say, ‘Thierry, what’s it like being only the second best-looking guy in the room right now?’” he says, cackling at himself again.

Humour is central to Morgan’s life, and along with proper pubs (he grew up in one), he misses being the butt of the joke when he’s in America.

“I like getting off the plane somewhere like Heathrow and walking through the crowd and having at least one person shouting, ‘He’s back...You w****r!’ They don’t really mean it in a hurtful way, they just mean it as a laugh and I think that’s funny.”

Despite announcing his departure from CNN, Morgan still plans to work in the US.

Ever the journalist, he won’t reveal too much about the tantalising “pastures new”, but does say he plans to write more, is considering some “interesting TV work” and has “some ideas for documentaries”.

For now though, he seems content with the way things have panned out.

“I still consider myself to be primarily a journalist, but I have also done shows that have given me an insight into celebrity,” he says. “Britain’s Got Talent got 19 million viewers the year I did it with Susan Boyle, which made it one of the most successful shows in the history of British television. To do a show like that, it makes you famous and it gives you an insight into what that’s like.

“There are lots of good parts of fame, and there are the occasional pain in the backside parts of it. To me, you’ve got to take it all, rough and smooth,” he muses. “If you don’t want to go into it, don’t do it.”

  • Piers Morgan’s Life Stories continues on ITV on Fridays