The Story Behind Why Jeremy Clarkson Was Fired From Top Gear
The BBC's long-running automotive show, "Top Gear," has seen a lot of changes over the decades. Still, perhaps none was as surprising as the firing of popular host Jeremy Clarkson in 2015 and the subsequent resignation of his co-hosts, Richard Hammond and James May. Throughout Clarkson's tenure as host of a rebooted version of the show starting in 2002 (he also co-hosted the previous version in the '80s and '90s), the show attracted large numbers of new fans — namely, younger people and viewers from outside of the U.K. It was the most popular the show had ever been, and the BBC was seemingly pleased with its performance.
Through these years, however, controversy followed Clarkson everywhere he went. In particular, he was accused of making insensitive remarks or references on multiple highly-publicized occasions between 2011 and 2014. Finally, the BBC had enough and gave Clarkson a "final warning," as he called it.
In 2015, Clarkson attacked a producer on the show set, which ended with the producer being sent to the hospital. As a result, the BBC opted not to renew Clarkson's contract, effectively dismissing him from the show.
Insensitive remarks
Jeremy Clarkson's appeal, and what drew many new fans to the show, was his irreverent, sometimes downright rude sense of humor. This left him mired in controversy several times. The first, in 2011, occurred when Clarkson and co-hosts Richard Hammond and James May were discussing the Mastretta MXT, a sports car designed and built in Mexico. All three hosts made multiple comments consisting of offensive stereotypes of Mexican people, followed by a jab at the Mexican Ambassador to the U.K., who was angry enough to write a letter to the BBC about the incident.
Clarkson followed this by using an anti-Asian pejorative in a March 2014 special filmed in Myanmar. Then, in a leaked outtake from a 2013 episode, Clarkson mumbled what sounded like a racial slur against Black people, though Clarkson denied this. Older renditions of the well-known "Eeny, meeny, miny, moe" nursery rhyme used this slur, commonly substituted with the word "tiger" today. Clarkson maintains that in one take, he made a generic mumbling noise that unintentionally sounded like the slur he intended to replace. (He used the word "teacher" in the aired version.) While it's up to the viewer to decide what he said, the BBC was unhappy with the controversy, which led to Clarkson's final warning.
Later in 2014, the show came under fire for a license plate used in a special filmed in Patagonia that seemingly referenced the Falklands War. However, the BBC later determined this was an unfortunate coincidence.
A physical altercation
The straw that broke the camel's back with the BBC occurred in March of 2015 when Jeremy Clarkson became upset over the food options at a hotel where the show was filming. According to reports, Clarkson began hurling verbal abuse at producer Oisin Tymon (including racial remarks about Tymon's Irish ancestry). He then punched Tymon in the face without provocation.
After trying to apologize to Tymon, who didn't file a complaint, Clarkson self-reported the incident to the BBC. The network suspended production on "Top Gear" pending an investigation, and on March 25, 2015, it announced that it would not renew Clarkson's contract, which expired at the end of that month. Richard Hammond and James May departed the show soon after.
"Top Gear" went on hiatus while the BBC searched for new presenters, eventually hiring radio host Chris J. Evans and American actor Matt LeBlanc. Meanwhile, wild rumors flooded the internet about where Clarkson, Hammond, and May would move on to. In 2015, Amazon announced it was making a similar show featuring the three hosts, later titled "The Grand Tour."
Even still, Clarkson has continued to court controversy. In December 2022, Clarkson disparaged Meghan Markle in his weekly column for The Sun newspaper. Clarkson received a large wave of backlash from people who felt the comments were sexist. It's widely rumored that Amazon will break ties with Clarkson after his already-contracted episodes of "The Grand Tour."