JEREMY CLARKSON HAS given his first interview since being fired from Top Gear – telling Chris Evans the incident that lost him the lucrative presenting gig was “my own silly fault”.
The BBC announced in March that Clarkson’s contract would not be renewed, after his “unprovoked physical and verbal attack” on producer Oisín Tynon.
There have been reports that Clarkson and his two fellow presenters, James May and Richard Hammond, are in talks to begin a new motoring show elsewhere.
However, the veteran presenter played down that speculation in his BBC Radio 2 interview – saying “I’d be a fool to jump into something”.
“I have been at the BBC for 27 years. When you emerge after 27 years, you find the world is changed.
“When you learn how the world works, you can start to work out what to do.”
He added:
In the meantime I’m getting really good at tennis. My forehand has improved immeasurably.
The first show of what’s essentially Top Gear Live takes place tonight in Belfast. As a result of the Clarkson “fracas” however – it won’t have any of the show’s branding, and is being billed as ‘Clarkson, Hammond and May Live’.
Speaking to Evans, the host described it as a Top Gear outing in all but name – but said the team now had more of a free hand in the production “without any meddling” from the BBC.
He described Top Gear as “absolutely my baby … and I paid attention to every little bit of it”.
The Clarkson-and-co “badly organised world tour” will be in Belfast’s Odyssey Arena for three nights. It also heads to Sheffield, South Africa and Australia before ending in London in November.
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