British TV host and journalist Jeremy Clarkson is set to bring back his hit farming docuseries next month, despite a U.K. press organization ruling that he made “pejorative and prejudicial” comments about Meghan Markle’s sex.
Clarkson’s Farm will return to Amazon Prime for its third season, streaming from May 3. This comes after the show faced calls for cancelation after its star’s controversial comments about Meghan.
Clarkson received international backlash against his December 16, 2022, column for The Sun newspaper titled “One day, Harold the glove puppet will tell the truth about A Woman Talking B*****ks,” in which he expressed hatred for Meghan and a desire to see her paraded naked through the streets and shamed.
“I hate her. Not like I hate [former First Minister of Scotland] Nicola Sturgeon or [convicted serial killer] Rose West. I hate her on a cellular level,” he wrote.
“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.”
The column received swift backlash from social media users and was removed from The Sun‘s website shortly after. However, it still appeared in the print edition of the paper.
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Over 25,000 complaints about Clarkson’s comments were received by Britain’s Independent Press Standards Organization (IPSO), the regulatory body for the newspaper and magazine industry in the U.K.
IPSO opened a lengthy investigation into the comments and column in February 2023. After four months they returned a ruling that in publishing Clarkson’s commentary, The Sun had breached Clause 12 of the Editors’ Code of Practice which deals with discrimination.
On June 30, 2023, IPSO chair Lord Faulks said in a statement: “This was a serious breach of the Editors’ Code of Practice. We ruled that in this article The Sun published a pejorative and prejudicial reference to the Duchess of Sussex’s sex and breached Clause 12 (Discrimination) of the Editors’ Code of Practice.”
“We found that the imagery employed by the columnist in this article was humiliating and degrading toward the Duchess.”
Clarkson addressed the column in two public statements prior to the ruling. Two days after its publication, he wrote on X (formerly Twitter) that he was “horrified to have caused so much hurt” and that his naked and shaming analogy was intended as a reference to the HBO show Game of Thrones.
The star then issued a longer statement on social media apologizing and explaining that he had sent a personal apology to Harry and Meghan via email. This, however, was disputed by representatives for the duke and duchess who said an email was received but was only addressed to Harry and was marked “private and confidential.”
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After the IPSO ruling, attention once again turned to Amazon Prime Video who produce Clarkson’s Farm and The Grand Tour shows on which the presenter appears.
During an appearance at the Edinburgh TV Festival in August 2023, bosses for Prime Video revealed that its relationship with Clarkson was now complicated.
“There are lots of discussions going on, but the thing that’s important to say is there is so much more going on to the show than Clarkson,” Head of U.K. Unscripted, Fozia Khan, told the festival audience about the farming show, per Deadline.
U.K. Head of Originals, Dan Grabiner, added: “No decisions have been made… It’s a very complex topic, but we are not interrupting production of the current season.”
“I can’t tell you what a phenomenon this show is and the impact it’s had on the agricultural community,” Grabiner said. “We get messages from farmers around the world who just love the show, saying they’ve never really seen their world reflected properly on screen before. It’s a hell of a lot bigger than Jeremy Clarkson.”
The executives did not confirm whether their relationship with Clarkson would change after the production and release of season 3.
Newsweek approached representatives of Amazon Prime Video and Meghan Markle via email for comment.
James Crawford-Smith is Newsweek‘s royal reporter, based in London. You can find him on X (formerly Twitter) at @jrcrawfordsmith and read his stories on Newsweek‘s The Royals Facebook page.
Do you have a question about King Charles III, William and Kate, Meghan and Harry, or their family that you would like our experienced royal correspondents to answer? Email [email protected]. We’d love to hear from you.
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.