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Movies & TV

08th Nov 2016

Jeremy Clarkson reveals the regrets he harbours over Top Gear

Alan Loughnane

Some controversy…

Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May presented Top Gear across 22 seasons from 2002 up until 2015.

The hugely popular show was showing no signs of slumping in the ratings with the last two seasons of their shows averaging over six million viewers.

The trio famously left the show last year after Clarkson was dismissed from his role on the show following a fracas with one of the show’s producers. The fracas resulted in Irish producer, Oisin Tymon, being the victim of a verbal and physical attack from Clarkson and Tymon was struck, resulting in swelling and bleeding to his lip.

As result, Top Gear was presented by Chris Evans and Matt LeBlanc for the past season, with Evans resigning his role at the end of the season.

Speaking on Radio Times, Clarkson spoke about his time on Top Gear and also about the regret he has for comments he made about Mexican cars back in 2011.

He said Mexican cars would share the same characteristics: “lazy, feckless, flatulent, overweight, leaning against a fence asleep looking at a cactus with a blanket with a hole in the middle on as a coat”.

James May would add to the comments by claiming that Mexican food was like “like sick with cheese on it.”

Clarkson seemed to have genuine remorse about his comments and revealed that he apologised personally to the Mexican ambassador.

“Genuinely, if I look back at all the Top Gear Wikipedia section marked ‘controversy’, then Mexico is the one where we definitely got it wrong,” he said.

“I went to see the Mexican ambassador and apologised to him. I didn’t have to, the Beeb didn’t tell me to, but it was out of order.”

Clarkson continued: “If you’re writing thousands and thousands of words and doing hours and hours of television, then occasionally you will tread on a land mine.”

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Topics:

Top Gear