Jeremy Clarkson has slammed his Grand Tour co-host James May online, arguing he doesn’t understand ‘the problems of farming’.
May recently called Clarkson out for his ‘creepy’ article about Meghan Markle, in which he said he ‘hated’ the Duchess of Sussex on a ‘cellular level’, comparing her to Nicola Sturgeon and serial killer Rose West.
"At night, I’m unable to sleep as I lie there, grinding my teeth and dreaming of the day when she is made to parade naked through the streets of every town in Britain while the crowds chant, 'Shame!' and throw lumps of excrement at her," Clarkson wrote.
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While Clarkson has since apologised, at the end of last month, May said he wouldn't have made the same comments himself.
Speaking with Radio 4, he said he hadn’t read the full article as he’d been away, but said: "Well I think he did say something like: 'All people my age think the same way.'
“Well I’d like to go on record and say I don’t, and I’m only a few years younger than him. I wouldn’t have written that.
"I think it sounds a little bit too creepy but I’m also very much in favour of free speech and allowing the 'haters to hate' so we can see what they have to say."
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Two weeks later, May tweeted to lash out at, um, sourdough and spelt bread.
He wrote: “Is all that sourdough and spelt bollox over yet? I fancy a piece of bread.”
Clarkson bluntly replied: “Oh do f**k off.”
Many others commented to suggest he had been a bit too ‘harsh’, but Clarkson doubled down on his remark.
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“James is not a man who understands this kind of thing,” he said in one reply, adding: “He likes Spam.”
In another, he wrote: “James is not across the problems of farming.”
When someone told Clarkson he wasn’t being ‘very nice’, he replied: “He called farming ‘big gardening’. He’s not a man we can trust on the subject.”
In one other response, the presenter said: “He needs to understand that we need to try new things.”
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Following the massive backlash after the publication of Clarkson's article, it was removed from the Sun’s website - at Clarkson’s request - and he issued a public apology, saying the piece he wrote was ‘disgraceful’ and that he was ‘profoundly sorry’.
He was heavily criticised for the visceral imagery used to describe his hatred of Meghan, with some MPs even saying the police should get involved as it was clearly a hate crime.
In his apology, Clarkson said: "One of the strange things I’ve noticed in recent times is that whenever an MP or a well-known person is asked to apologise for something, no matter how heartfelt or profound that apology may be, it’s never enough for the people who called for it in the first place.
"So I’m going to try and buck the trend this morning with an apology for the things I said in a Sun column recently about Meghan Markle. I really am sorry."
Topics: Celebrity, Jeremy Clarkson, James May
Jess Hardiman