Who is Dr. Brian Morley? All about the physician and healthcare official who sued John Oliver

Dr. Brian Morley, a physician and healthcare executive, recently sued the American-British comedian John Oliver for allegedly defaming him in his satire late-night talk show, Last Week Tonight. Oliver, who is also known as a political comic and is widely popular for his Pythonesque wit, is currently making headlines as he quoted Dr. Morley saying it was okay for a patient going through bowel problems to be "a little dirty for a couple of days."

Dr. Brian Morley, as we mentioned, is a physician and US healthcare executive and the former medical director of AmeriHealth Caritas, an integrated managed care organization. He alleged that Oliver defamed him in one of the April 2024 episodes of Last Week Tonight by taking quotes from a 2017 testimony, which, according to him, were out of context.

Everything we know about the complaint against John Oliver

On March 28, 2025, Dr. Morley filed a complaint against the 47-year-old comedian in the New York Southern District Court. Entertainment Weekly reviewed the complaint, which claimed that a couple of sentences from Morley's testimony were altered and manipulated by Oliver and his team and were also cut out of context.

However, according to the complaint, Dr. Morley's complete and unedited quote from the 2017 testimony read:

"In certain cases, yes, with the patient with significant comorbidities, you would want to have someone wiping them and getting the feces off. But like I said, people have bowel movements every day where they don’t completely clean themselves and we don’t fuss over too much. People are allowed to be dirty. It’s when the dirty and the feces and the urine interfere with, you know, medical safety, like in someone who has concomitant comorbidities that you worry, but not in this specific case. I would allow him to be a little dirty for a couple days."

Dr. Brian Morley demanded that the alleged statements made against him be taken down and removed from any kind of circulation. The former medical director sought $75,000 in compensatory damages as well as special and punitive damages.

According to a statement provided to Entertainment Weekly, the talk show's representatives said:

"We strongly dispute this meritless lawsuit and look forward to vigorously contesting it in court. We do not have any further comment on pending litigation."

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Representatives of HBO and John Oliver have not yet responded or made any comments when Entertainment Weekly reached out to them. Morley's attorney declined as well when asked to comment. We have shared below the April 2024 episode in which John Oliver addresses the matter. Drag it to 21 minutes and continue watching from there.

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