Jeremy Clarkson, The Grand Tour show may be dropped by Amazon Prime – report

Former Top Gear UK host Jeremy Clarkson may part ways with the Amazon Prime streaming platform – and bring The Grand Tour motoring show to an end – at the end of next year, according to an overseas report.

Clarkson came under fire in late December 2022 over a column published in the UK's The Sun newspaper, which called for Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex to "parade naked" while people "throw lumps of excrement at her".

The TV presenter apologised for the comments in the column on 19 December 2022, three days after it was published – claiming they were a reference to the Game of Thrones TV show. Clarkson apologised again in a lengthy post on social media platform Instagram overnight.

Now a report from US entertainment news website Variety claims streaming service Amazon Prime "won't be working with Clarkson beyond seasons" of his The Grand Tour motoring and Clarkson's Farm shows "that have already been commissioned".

Variety claims four more special episodes are planned for The Grand Tour, the last of which is due to air in late 2024.

After this episode is broadcast, the US website claims the motoring show – which Clarkson presents alongside Richard Hammond and James May – will come to an end.

Sources have reportedly told the US website Clarkson's second show on Amazon Prime, Clarkson's Farm, is now due to end after its third season, which it says is expected in 2024.

Amazon Prime reportedly declined to comment when approached by Variety – and Clarkson is yet to respond to the reports on his social media profiles.

The latest controversy involving Clarkson comes seven years after the presenter was forced to depart the BBC's Top Gear in 2015, after assaulting a producer over the lack of a hot dinner after a long day of filming.

After the incident, Clarkson was suspended from Top Gear, and his contract with the BBC broadcaster in the UK was not renewed.

Clarkson, Hammond and May – who turned Top Gear into a global TV sensation after it was rebooted in 2002 – then signed a deal with Amazon Prime, and have so far filmed five seasons of The Grand Tour since 2016.

In his column published in The Sun newspaper on 16 December 2022, Clarkson wrote of the Duchess of Sussex (via Variety): "I hate her. Not like I hate Nicola Sturgeon [leader of the Scottish National Party] or Rose West [a UK serial killer]. I hate her on a cellular level.”

Clarkson then referenced what he later clarified was a reference to a scene from the Game of Thrones TV show: "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."

Three days after The Sun column was published, Clarkson said in a statement on Twitter: "In a column I wrote about Meghan, I made a clumsy reference to a scene in Game of Thrones and this has gone down badly with a great many people.

"I’m horrified to have caused so much hurt and I shall be more careful in future," Clarkson wrote.

Meghan Markle's high-profile husband, Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, responded to Clarkson's column in a later TV interview, calling it "horrific, hurtful and cruel towards my wife."

Clarkson issued a second, lengthy statement in a post on Instagram overnight – at a similar time to the release of the Variety report – saying "I really am sorry. All the way from the balls of my feet to the follicles on my head. This is me putting my hands up."

“Usually, I read what I’ve written to someone else before filing, but I was home alone on that fateful day, and in a hurry," said Clarkson on Instagram.

"So when I’d finished, I just pressed send. And then, when the column appeared the next day, the land mine exploded.

"It was a slow rumble to start with and I ignored it. But then the rumble got louder. So I picked up a copy of The Sun to see what all the fuss was about.

"We’ve all been there, I guess. In that precise moment when we suddenly realise we’ve completely messed up. You are sweaty and cold at the same time. And your head pounds. And you feel sick. I couldn’t believe what I was reading. Had I really said that? It was horrible."

Clarkson said in the Instagram statement he apologised to Meghan and Prince Harry in an email on Christmas morning, that he "was baffled by what they had been saying on TV but that the language I’d used in my column was disgraceful and that I was profoundly sorry."

A spokesperson for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex verified to Variety Clarkson's claim of an apology, but said "what remains to be addressed is [Clarkson's] long-standing pattern of writing articles that spread hate rhetoric, dangerous conspiracy theories, and misogyny.

"Unless each of his other pieces were also written ‘in a hurry,’ as he states, it is clear that this is not an isolated incident shared in haste, but rather a series of articles shared in hate."

Clarkson has been subject to many rounds of controversy over the past two decades presenting Top Gear and The Grand Tour, from a plethora of xenophobic comments – including saying a Mexican-made car would be "lazy" – to a racial slur in an unused clip from a 2012 episode of Top Gear.

After Clarkson, Hammond and May departed the show, Top Gear was rebooted again by the BBC with a new team of presenters.

A total of 11 seasons have been aired since then, with the past seven hosted by motoring journalist Chris Harris, comedian and presenter Paddy McGuinness, and former cricketer turned presenter Andrew "Freddie" Flintoff.