Clarkson in numbskulls jibe as his debut on ‘Millionaire’ is labelled rude and insulting
HIS girlfriend was not impressed by his sarcastic jibes and viewers branded him ‘insulting and rude’.
But Jeremy Clarkson was unapologetic about his style as he stepped into Chris Tarrant’s shoes as the host of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?
The Top Gear presenter, 58, launched a seven-day run of the quiz show on Saturday night to mark its 20th anniversary.
His first contestant, prison officer Ricky Holmes, 31, did not start well, using his ask-the-audience lifeline for the second question. ‘Who knew you’d be needed this early?’ Clarkson asked the audience.
Later, commenting on how long Mr Holmes spent thinking about answers, he said: ‘I know it’s a bank holiday but people do have to go to work on Tuesday.’
Some of the show’s 4.8million viewers criticised Clarkson on social media. One tweeted: ‘Really not enjoying Jeremy Clarkson’s snide manner’, while another said he had ‘ruined’ the show.
Clarkson admitted his girlfriend Lisa Hogan was ‘cross’ because he had been ‘horrid’ and suggested he would be kinder in the remaining six episodes of the quiz show, which continued last night.
But he defended his efforts in an article suggesting the reason the show was axed in 2014 was because so many contestants were happy to walk away with modest sums rather than risk all for a big win. He wrote in The Sunday Times the show should celebrate the ‘brainpower of the well-read and the bright, and maybe even the lucky’.
But he added: ‘Stupid people who just want enough for a bit of decking in the garden should be told to get lost. Why should numbskulls be allowed on?’
Clarkson said he had vowed in the past to ‘snarl and snap at hopeless contestants’ if he ever got a chance to present the show.
Mr Holmes, from Rotherham, South Yorkshire, who won £8,000, dismissed the row, saying the presenter was ‘a very nice man – sometimes you have to take it in jest, take it as what it is’.