Piers Morgan Slammed For Saying Naomi Osaka Is Exploiting Mental Health Like Meghan Markle

Piers Morgan has come under fire for criticising Naomi Osaka and her decision not to do press conferences during the French Open.

The tennis star explained how interviews have affected her mental health in the past and she didn't want it to impact on her playing at Roland Garros.

Osaka was fined $15,000 for the move and has since pulled out of the Grand Slam.

She wrote on Twitter: "I think the best thing for the tournament, the other players, and my well-being is that I withdraw so that everyone can get back to focusing on the tennis going on in Paris.

"I never wanted to be a distraction and I accept that my timing was not ideal and my message could have been clearer."

While the world number two was praised for looking after her mental and physical health equally, the former Good Morning Britain host attacked her.

Piers also claimed her $55.2 million in earnings in the past 12 months has caused her ego to inflate 'to gigantic proportions'.

He wrote: "What Osaka really means is that she doesn't want to face the media if she hasn't played well, because the beastly journalists might actually dare to criticize her performance, and she's not going to 'subject' herself to 'people that doubt me.'

"This is straight out of the Meghan and Harry playbook of wanting to have the world's largest cake and eating it, by exploiting the media for ruthlessly commercial self-promotion but using mental health to silence any media criticism."

He added that he's not sorry if he's offended 'delicate snowflakes' as he feels it's necessary to say 'Osaka's antics stink of a stupendous ego raging out control'.

Morgan has since come under intense scrutiny for the column, with many people on Twitter saying it's unnecessary and unkind to beat someone while they open up about their vulnerabilities.

He didn't take too kindly to the criticism and replied to one person mockingly: "This criticism is damaging to my mental health. Delete."

Morgan hit back at another critic, saying: "She attacked the media for doing their jobs. As Nadal etc said this week, without media support, tennis would not be the big sport it is & the players wouldn't be rich famous stars."

People pointed out the hypocrisy in the column considering Piers famously walked off his breakfast TV show when he was criticised for his comments about Meghan Markle.

He laid into the Duchess of Sussex after her interview with Oprah and when his on-screen colleague Alex Beresford challenged him, he stormed off.

Morgan later parted ways with ITV and left the show he had been on for several years.