Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson was very publicly let go by the BBC earlier this year, after an incident in which he punched one of the show’s producers.
At the time, the story was that the incident occurred at the end of a long day’s shooting, when a tired and grumpy Clarkson was informed that his hotel’s kitchen couldn’t reopen specially to make him a steak.
Over the weekend, however, Clarkson opened up about the circumstances leading up to the punch, saying in a Sunday Telegraph column that a cancer scare (he has since been cleared) pushed him over the edge.
“Two days before the ‘fracas’, I’d been told, sternly, by my doctor that the lump on my tongue was probably cancer and that I must get it checked out immediately,” he said. “But I couldn’t do that. We were in the middle of a Top Gear series. And Top Gear always came first.”
Result: One decked producer, one fired presenter, and one very, very pissed-off horde of Top Gear fans, baying for the BBC’s blood.
Per a report in The Guardian, he now describes it as “the most stressful day” of his professional career, and is somewhat sheepish about how it all played out.
“It was beyond-belief stressful,” he said. “Everything was going wrong, and then you know … there you go. But everybody has stressful days, and they manage to cope better than I did.”
Clarkson has spent his enforced retirement rifling through the glove box of his car, searching for stray fucks to give; after finding none whatsoever, he has decided that he might as well do another TV show.
“Let’s stop being silly and pick up the pieces and start again,” he said, reasoning that 55 is too young to retire. “I just know I’m going to do another car show.”
He hasn’t yet said what form this new show will take, or where it will happen. TV networks, please commence throwing your money at Clarkson in an orderly fashion.
Photo: Paul Gilham via Getty Images
