Is Clarkson now out of lifelines at ITV?
JEREMY Clarkson’s television career appears to be hanging by a thread as it can be revealed ITV has axed filming of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?
The 62-year-old presenter, who is thought to be paid about £3million a year to present the quiz show, was due to film celebrity specials next month.
Arrangements for the programmes – which would have raised money for charity – had been finalised. But at the end of last week, participants were told filming at the Dock 10 studios in Manchester had been postponed due to ‘scheduling issues’.
In an email, the production firm said: ‘Owing to some movement in the ITV schedules, we’re now unable to record the planned celebrity specials until later this year.’
It has started speculation that ITV may follow the example reportedly set by Amazon Prime in parting ways with the former Top Gear host, after his comments about Meghan Markle in a newspaper column attracted a record number of complaints.
On Monday, showbusiness bible Variety suggested Amazon Prime will see out contracts with Clarkson for the final four specials of The Grand Tour and a third series of Clarkson’s Farm – but not film any more TV with him. Prime has not yet made a statement on the issue but a press conference for the second series of Clarkson’s Farm, due yesterday, was cancelled.
On Monday Clarkson said both Amazon and ITV were ‘incandescent’ over the column in The Sun, in which he said he hated Meghan ‘on a cellular level’. He also wrote, referring to a scene in TV drama Game of Thrones, he was dreaming of the day when Meghan would be paraded naked through the streets and pelted with excrement.
In his Instagram apology post, Clarkson said: ‘I really am sorry. All the way from the balls of my feet to the follicles on my head. This is me putting my hands up. It’s a mea culpa with bells on.
‘Usually, I read what I’ve written to someone else before filing, but I was home alone on that fateful day, and in a hurry. So when I’d finished, I just pressed send. And then, when the column appeared the next day, the landmine exploded.’ He added: ‘I therefore wrote to everyone who works with me saying how sorry I was and then on Christmas morning, I emailed Harry and Meghan in California to apologise to them too.’
But the Sussexes denied he directly apologised to Meghan. Harry called Clarkson’s December 16 column ‘horrific, hurtful and cruel’ in a TV interview last week while promoting his memoir, Spare.
Clarkson has hosted the show, in which contestants have lifelines to help them answer questions in their quest to win one million pounds, since 2018.
A week after the column, ITV boss Kevin Lygo said of Clarkson: ‘We hire him as a consummate broadcaster of the most famous quiz on television, Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?
‘So it’s not quite in our wheelhouse but I don’t know what he was thinking when he wrote that. It was awful.’