Several weeks after his disgustingly offensive column in The Sun, Jeremy Clarkson has seemingly broken new ground and realized that he’s wrong, for the first time in his life.
In an Instagram post shared on his personal account on Monday January 16, Clarkson detailed that he had faced major backlash from friends, family, and both Amazon and ITV (the producers behind his two major shows, Clarkson’s Farm and Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?). It seems that such a universal response has achieved the impossible: Clarkson has realized that he was wrong.
“I really am sorry,” he wrote. “All the way from the balls of my feet to the follicles on my head. This is me putting my hands up. It’s a mea culpa with bells on.”
The TV personality goes on to explain that he also apologized directly to Meghan Markle and Prince Harry via email and that he never intended his calls for Markle to be paraded naked through the streets to be inflammatory (oh, to have the lack of foresight of a white man). Clarkson claims to have been referencing Game of Thrones, but never actually mentioned the show. While I don’t think anyone missed the reference, he seems to think that excuses the comment.
All in all, the apology does seem halfway genuine, despite some half-hearted excuses and explanations. The reaction was universally shocking and the criticism from his own daughter on Instagram would surely have broken through the noise, as Clarkson himself acknowledges.
Plus, he doesn’t seem to believe he can simply move on from the entire incident.
“So can I move on now?” Clarkson questions at the end of his apology. “Not sure. It’s hard to be interesting and vigilant at the same time. You never hear peals of laughter from a health and safety seminar. But I promise you this, I will try.”
I’m hoping we can believe him, but considering Clarkson pats himself on the back in the very same apology for “very rarely” being accused of sexism back during his Top Gear days, I’m not entirely convinced. A man who has built his career and indeed doubles down on the fact that you need to be shocking to be relevant seems to be backing himself into a corner. At the very least, we can only hope that Clarkson doesn’t encourage violence on a Black woman who has already received global death threats. Then again, you would have thought that would be obvious in the first place.
(featured image: Amazon)
