Jeremy Clarkson, who gained worldwide fame as the primary host of the popular Top Gear motoring show has disclosed that he received a serious cancer diagnosis in May after a routine medical examination and subsequent biopsy.
The 66-year-old sharing the emotional news in the final episodes of the fifth season of his hit Amazon Prime show, Clarkson’s Farm.
In poignant scenes filmed at his Diddly Squat Farm in Oxfordshire, Clarkson is seen breaking the news to his visibly stunned co-stars, Kaleb Cooper and Charlie Ireland.
“I disappeared off the other week and I had a biopsy, and it is cancer, and it’s aggressive, but it’s really early,” Clarkson told his colleagues. He added that he had already undergone surgery to remove roughly ten percent of his prostate.
Jeremy Clarkson has endured health struggles in recent times
In late 2024, Clarkson underwent emergency heart surgery to insert two stents after doctors warned he was days away from a serious heart attack. Reflecting on his health battles, Clarkson remarked: “So we started the year and I had coronary heart disease and ended it with me with cancer.”
The season finale concludes with footage of Clarkson in a hospital bed, where he candidly admits to viewers that some of his subsequent treatment “has gone awry” and that he faced an uncertain recovery timeline.
“If this is all successful, I’ll see you for season six. And if it isn’t, I won’t. Take care, everyone,” Clarkson said.
Household name
Clarkson is perhaps most well know for how he revolutionised automotive television by transforming the BBC’s Top Gear from a dry consumer show into a global entertainment phenomenon.
Alongside Richard Hammond and James May, his witty, anti-establishment style and epic, cinematic road trips attracted a record-breaking 350 million viewers worldwide.
After leaving the BBC and continuing his motoring legacy on Amazon’s The Grand Tour, Clarkson successfully transitioned to a completely different kind of fame with Clarkson’s Farm.
Trading supercars for tractors at his Diddly Squat estate, his raw, hilarious, and often moving portrayal of British farming won a massive new audience.