Piers Morgan reveals thieves stole more than £10,000 in cash at French villa

Piers Morgan has revealed thieves stole more than £10,000 in cash from him and his wife Celia as they slept during a robbery at their luxurious holiday home in Côte d’Azur, France last month.

The Good Morning Britain presenter, 55, claimed the thieves ‘orchestrated’ the bedroom invasion as they did a ‘recce’ of the villas in the area.

Describing the ordeal as ‘unnerving’, the journalist admitted he ‘deliberately took measures’ to avoid an attack by lying about his specific location on social media and insisted ‘there’s not much the police can do’ to find the culprits.

‘It was very orchestrated, and just very unnerving. I saw a drone flying over and hovering a couple of days beforehand. They were clearly doing a recce of the villas.’ the host said.

The TV star – who has who has kids Spencer, 27, Stanley, 23, Albert, 19, from a previous marriage and Elise, eight, with Celia – insisted burglars who raid the area tend to prey on holidaymakers with ‘flashy watches’ at celebrity hot spot Club 55.  

Piers recalled when he and his wife of ten years, 44, discovered they had been robbed: ‘They found my briefcase… took more than ten grand — that was in euros and pounds and some dollars. So once they got a bundle of cash, they took that and jewellery, and didn’t take anything else.

‘I lied about where I was on Instagram and social media. I said I was in St Tropez when, in fact, I was a few miles away in Ramatuelle. I never named the villa or showed where it could be, so it was nothing we did’, he explained to The Sun. 

The media personality added that they didn’t take any laptops, cards or phones from the Morgan family, but managed to get their hands on ‘irreplaceable’ presents he bought for columnist Celia in celebration of their fifth wedding anniversary in 2015. 

They first announced the horrific news when the mother-of-one hit out at the ‘depraved and despicable’ criminals.

She said the burglars managed to get within inches of her and Piers as they slept, taking a handbag from beside her bed.

The thieves also took handfuls of jewellery from a box which they dumped in the living room, fleeing as they heard the couple’s 6am alarm sounding. 

Celia said she snoozed the alarm until 6.15am when she got up and discovered what had happened, missing the thieves by just 15 minutes.

‘Knowing how much worse things could have been had we woken to find intruders in our bedroom put things into perspective when it came to working out what had been taken,’ she wrote in the Daily Telegraph.

‘They’d stolen all the cash they could find, right down to the few pounds I hadn’t spent at Heathrow on the way out, but left the credit cards, along with my driver’s licence.

‘I felt a stomach-plummeting sense of violation at the actions of these depraved and despicable inhuman beings.’ 

Police revealed to the couple that thieves no longer target cards and technology – such as the couple’s laptops and phones – because they are too easy to trace. 

Celia joked the burglars would have left disappointed, after taking jewellery that had sentimental value to her – but little monetary value.

Aside from the anniversary gift and money, they also stole a vintage Pucci cuff she bought at an LA market, and some earrings she bought in Edgware Road with her first book advance.  

Officers said that the summer season sees a sharp uptick in burglaries on the French Riviera as criminals target wealthy holiday makers. 

Other celebrities who have been burgled previously in the area include Trinny Woodall, Patrick Viera and Richard Hammond.

In July 2016, Abbey Clancy revealed her terror at coming face-to-face with two burglars who broke into her plush pad in the south of France.

She had been at the villa with a friend at the time because her husband Peter Crouch was working as a Euro 2016 football pundit in Paris. 

Abbey told The Mirror: ‘I had these two massive guys in my room, they were right there in front of me. But I screamed so much I scared them away. 

‘It was absolutely terrifying, it was one of the worst things to happen. It was so awful. Things like this happen to people all the time.

‘But when it actually happens to you, you can’t believe it.’ 

And in August 2015, Jenson Button and his then wife, Jessica were gassed as they slept during a raid on their French villa.

The pair were with friends in St Tropez when thieves broke in and stole valuables worth £300,000 including Mrs Button’s engagement ring, believed to be worth £250,000.

It was claimed the Formula One driver and his wife may have been knocked out by gas pumped into the house through air conditioning units.

They added that Button and his friends weren’t disturbed during the raid as the effects of the gas gave the burglars ‘free rein’.