Jeremy Clarkson Says Top Gear Dismissal "Was My Own Silly Fault"

I know, I know, you’re all bored of this whole Jeremy Clarkson thing. A quick recap, in case you’ve been living under some kind of WiFi-less rock for most of the year: After filming an epsiode of Top Gear, Clarkson returned to his hotel to find he had no food, argued with a producer before punching him, resulting in his contract not being renewed.

Anyway, it had mostly blown over, but this morning the fuzzy haired one appeared on Chris Evans’ breakfast radio show to talk about the upcoming live shows in his first public interview since the whole fracas thing. You can click here to listen to the whole interview, which starts about 1h 40m in, or just skim through the highlights below:

Chris Evans mentioned that Clarkson had written that he was sad to no longer be working on Top Gear, to which he replied “I was very sad, but it was my own silly fault, so I can hardly complain.”

On the subject of future shows, reading between the lines it sounds like a new show would likely be screened on an on demand service like Netflix. Clarkson said he’s spent the last few weeks ‘listening’ to other people, as he’s spent 27 years at the BBC and needs to learn how the world works these days. “It was all very sudden, you’d be stupid to just jump into something.” With the likes of Netflix getting evermore popular, this seems like a logical next step.

Clarkson raised £100,000 for charity to take someone on “one last lap” of the Dunsfold track, which he admitted would be “emotional.”

Evans asked how it felt knowing that once the live shows were finished, he would have no Top Gear to return to. Clarkson expertly dodged the question, and instead talked about how it was nice that the trio were able to “make our own films without any…meddling.” That’s an interesting point about how limiting the BBC was, and considering he still managed to court a hell of a lot of controversy under their umbrella, a new show with no limitations could upset a lot of people…

Chris played a hilarious clip from Jeremy’s first ever review from 1989, in which he puts on a terribly posh accent to hide his common northern accent. He also talks about how becoming established with the BBC was a long and drawn out process, as well as how he never knew what to do with his hands while being filmed.

Clarkson also revealed that his favourite car ever filmed on Top Gear was the Lexus LFA.

Clarkson confirmed the final three episodes are currently being edited together right now, though they might have to be presented by “the elephant in the room.” One film involved purchasing cheap 4x4s for “a couple of hundred pounds,” and purchasing classic cars to go on “a traditional classic car weekend.”