Clarkson ‘grateful’ for being bullied at Repton School
JEREMY Clarkson has said he is “grateful” he was bullied when attending a Derbyshire boarding school.
The Grand Tour and Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? host was educated at Repton School in South Derbyshire, a place which he says was the making of him.
The 60-year-old former Top Gear presenter says he had a “horrible” experience with bullies, including being made to lick the toilets clean and one student defecating in his tuck box in his first two years there, the Mirror reports.
The well-known motoring journalist said that while the experience was awful, he did not necessarily think it was a bad thing for him.
Speaking on the Andy Jaye podcast, Jeremy said he thought it had “sharpened” him up and “brought me to my senses”.
He said: “I appreciate that for many, many, many people bullying is horrific, but it just wasn’t for me particularly.”
He added: “I mean it was horrible to suffer from it, but I look back and I am grateful for what it made me become, if that makes sense.”
Jeremy was eventually expelled, but he is happy about that too as it set him on the path that has made him one of the country’s most successful TV personalities.
Walking away from the school, a man at the side of the road asked where he was going. Jeremy replied that he’d been expelled, and the man replied “Ha, well you’ll have to be a journalist then.”
He said: “So that was lucky I bumped into him, because I hadn’t even considered journalism.”
Meanwhile, Jeremy is set to return to our screens for the Boxing Day episode of Who Wants to be a Millionaire? – starring Piers Morgan.
The two had a long-running feud before they resolved it by getting drunk together.
The two opinion-setters had a punch-up around 16 years ago, with Piers mocking the irony that the show will air on Boxing Day.