Jeremy Clarkson Nick England/Getty Images Logo text British television personality Jeremy Clarkson has revealed somber news regarding his health, delivered in the final episodes of his Prime Video documentary series, Clarkson’s Farm, where he revealed to his farm’s manager that he has prostate cancer.
Clarkson, who rose to fame as the host of both iterations of the wildly successful British motoring series Top Gear, is a household name in Britain and, through the relaunched version of his beloved show, gained international recognition. The 65-year-old also writes a weekly column for the U.K. broadsheet The Times, espousing his libertarian, cantankerous, anti-authority perspective on politics and cultural matters, and is a frequent guest on various television programs in the U.K.
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The fifth and latest season of Clarkson’s Farm, which follows Clarkson as he attempts to run a farm in England’s Cotswolds region, opened with the host undergoing a procedure to unblock coronary arteries. “I had a medical, remember, back in May?” Clarkson told his manager, Kaleb Cooper, and his land agent, Charlie Ireland, in the penultimate episode of Clarkson’s Farm. “I disappeared the other week, and I had a biopsy, and it is cancer, and it’s aggressive.” Clarkson promises his team members that he will “be fine.”
The episode was shot over the summer last year and released on Tuesday on Prime Video. Clarkson, who has known about the diagnosis since last May, says that even though the cancer was detected at an “early stage,” he is not thrilled about it. The British TV legend is now using the diagnosis as a means to advocate for early prostate cancer screening among men.
“If I hadn’t got myself checked out and they hadn’t caught the problem early, this could well have been my last harvest. It’s only because they did catch it early, there’s every hope that I’ll be harvesting this farm for many, many years to come,” Clarkson said on the show.
Clarkson was initially hesitant to share with his staff — and his show’s audience — what type of cancer he has, replying to a query from Cooper, “Where it is, is of no concern to anybody.” But later in the episode, what exactly Clarkson is going through and where his health stood at the time of filming is made clear. “The prostate, 10 percent of it’s dead,” he said. “The 10 percent where the cancer is.”
The season ends with Clarkson in a hospital bed.
“So we started season five in a hospital bed and here we are at the end of season five, I’m back in a hospital bed,” he said. “Some of the treatment has gone awry, let’s say. I’ll probably be here for a little while…What I wanted to say was, if this is all successful, I’ll see you for season six. And if it isn’t, I won’t. Take care, everyone.”
Last June, Clarkson, with his typical blunt humor, advocated that men undergo routine prostate exams to ensure early detection. “I’ve had too many friends go down with prostate cancer, and all it takes to get on top of the situation early is a moment or two of being a bit cross-eyed. You get the all-clear and the doc goes home happy. What’s not to like?” he said.
Ahead of the episode’s release, Clarkson took to social media to warn his fans about the dark turn Clarkson’s Farm was about to take in season five’s final episodes.
“Ordinarily, we try to keep the show bucolic and charming and cheerful. But the final two episodes, which drop in the middle of the night tonight, are none of those things, really… They’re a difficult watch. They’re really, really difficult.”
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