Jeremy Clarkson says he had a cancer scare in the days leading up to the incident that saw him dropped from Top Gear.
The host, who says he has since got the all clear, made the revelation in his Sunday Times column.
“Two days before the ‘fracas’ I’d been told, sternly, by my doctor that a lump on my tongue was probably cancer and that I must get it checked out immediately,” he wrote.
“But I couldn’t do that. We were in the middle of a Top Gear series. And Top Gear always came first.”
Clarkson described the all consuming nature of presenting Top Gear, particularly after the death of his mother and the break-up of his marriage.
“It was an all-consuming entity, a many-tentacled global monster that was dysfunctional and awkward and mad but I loved it with a passion. I loved it like my own child,” he wrote.
“I felt sick because after I’d lost my home and my mother, I’d thrown myself even more vigorously into my job and now, idiotically, I’d managed to lose that too.”
Clarkson now plans to do another car show, but did not say whether or not his former co-hosts James May and Richard Hammond will be involved.
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