Former Top Gear host Jeremy Clarkson has broken his silence on the events leading up to his assault on producer Oisin Tymon, which ultimately saw him sacked from the show.
Clarkson explained in a guest column for the Sunday Times that he had a cancer scare in the days leading up to the incident, calling the day of the punch “the most stressful day I had ever had in 27 years at the BBC.”
“Two days before the ‘fracas’, I’d been told, sternly, by my doctor that the lump on my tongue was probably cancer and that I must get it checked out immediately,” he wrote. “But I couldn’t do that. We were in the middle of a Top Gear series. And Top Gear always came first.”
Clarkson has now been given the all-clear, but that doesn’t change the fact he’s now left without a television project after 13 years hosting Top Gear.
It seems it won’t be long before we see the presenter once again in some capacity though. “You need something that will fill the void,” he wrote.
“I have lost my baby but I shall create another. I don’t know who the other parent will be or what the baby will be like.”
Related: Clarkson Still Returning To Australia Despite Sacking
Clarkson also revealed that he considered quitting television after being sacked but has since reconsidered. “Let’s stop being silly and pick up the pieces and start again … I just know I’m going to do another car show,” he wrote.
Despite the situation he looks back fondly on Top Gear writing, “It was an all-consuming entity, a many-tentacled global monster that was dysfunctional and awkward and mad but I loved it with a passion. I loved it like my own child.”
The BBC is yet to announce who will replace Clarkson on Top Gear.
