Jeremy Clarkson has revealed he is facing a fresh health scare just weeks after he said he was 'days from death' due to a serious medical issue with his heart.
The star of Clarkson's Farm, Jezza has spent the last half a decade working on his £12.5 million rated Diddly Squat Farm, with three seasons of the hit show currently released via Amazon Prime Video.
It has seen the former Top Gear presenter's move away from fast cars to growing potatoes and becoming the likes of a beekeeper and wild berry forager. But things have gotten serious for the 64-year-old in recent weeks after he revealed he almost died due a health scare that started on his summer holidays.
In a column for The Sunday Times, Clarkson said he suddenly found it difficult to swim. He also couldn't walk up a flight of stairs 'without holding someone's hand'.
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Back in the Cotswolds, he said he woke up feeling 'clammy and tight chested'. Ignoring these symptoms, he later phoned for an ambulance after he got pins and needles in his left arm.
After being rushed to John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, docs found he had a blocked artery with another in bad shape. Asking docs how serious it was, they said he was 'maybe' days away from 'his bankruptcy'.
Now, Clarkson revealed yesterday (19 November) that he has suffered another health setback which had left him 'barely moveable'.
Attending a farmers protest against the government's decision to introduce an inheritance tax rate of 20 percent on all UK farms worth more than £1 million. According to the National Farmers’ Union (NFU), this is likely to impact '75 percent of the total farmed area' in the country.
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Heading to the protest, Clarkson said his presence had been risked due to his new health problem, after suffering from a suspected slipped disc. This is where the soft tissue between the vertebrae in your spine pushes outwards.
After being advised by doctors not to go, Clarkson still made his presence known. Addressing a crowd at the march in central London, Clarkson said: “I’m off my t*ts on codeine and paracetamol up here.”
Clarkson told the Times in 2021 that avoiding inheritance tax was 'the critical thing' in his decision to buy Diddly Squat Farm for £4.45 million.
Asked about his comments, he told PA: “That’s actually quite funny because the real reason I bought the farm was because I wanted to shoot, so I thought if I told a bunch of people that I bought a farm so I could shoot pheasants it might look bad.
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“So, I thought I better come up with another excuse, so I said inheritance tax. I actually didn’t know about inheritance tax until after I bought it. I didn’t mind, obviously, but the real reason I bought it is because I wanted to shoot.”
He said he opposed the tax changes and believes the government should admit they made a “mistake”.
Farming contractor Kaleb Cooper and land agent Charlie Ireland, who both star on Clarkson’s Farm, were also in London on Tuesday to join the protests.
Of his participation in the rallies, Ireland told PA: “We’ve come to say please come and listen, get out onto a farm.
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“Rachel Reeves, I’ll take you around 100 farms, we will show you what it means.”
Environment Secretary Steve Reed has rejected claims that the Government has underestimated how many will be affected by the inheritance tax plans. Appearing before MPs on the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Efra) committee on Tuesday as thousands of farmers marched on Westminster demanding a U-turn, Reed was pressed on the backlash.
Chairman Alistair Carmichael said there were 'a lot more than 500 (farmers) here saying they’re going to be affected', and asked whether they were wrong.
Reed replied: “Well, assuming these projections from HMRC, validated by the OBR and IFS, are correct then many of them, probably happily, are wrong because there are things that they can do to plan their tax affairs as most businesses or asset owners would do to limit their liability.
“The numbers I’ve heard bandied around are enormous and very, very frightening if people were to believe them.”
Topics: Jeremy Clarkson, Health, Celebrity, UK News
Tom Earnshaw