'The Grand Tour' Canceled in Wake of Jeremy Clarkson's Meghan Markle Column
Amazon Prime will likely be cutting ties with Jeremy Clarkson in the wake of his disgusting column about Meghan Markle that he penned for The Sun. According to Variety, Amazon Prime will not be moving forward with additional seasons of Clarkson's The Grand Tour and Clarkson's Farm aside from the ones that have already been commissioned. Clarkson made waves in December when he wrote an article about Meghan in which he said that he wished that she would be paraded naked while people "throw lumps of excrement at her."
Aside from the report about Clarkson's future with Prime Video, the platform has not released any comment about the story. However, on Monday afternoon, Clarkson released a lengthy apology on social media regarding his column. He wrote, "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." Clarkson claimed that he wrote his piece for The Sun "in a hurry" and that he didn't have anyone proofread it. He shared that the day after the piece was published, it was as though a "land mine exploded."
"It was a slow rumble to start with and I ignored it. But then the rumble got louder. So I picked up a copy of The Sun to see what all the fuss was about," Clarkson wrote. "We've all been there, I guess. In that precise moment when we suddenly realise we've completely messed up. You are sweaty and cold at the same time. And your head pounds. And you feel sick. I couldn't believe what I was reading. Had I really said that? It was horrible." In his statement, Clarkson wrote that he sent an email to Harry and Meghan on Christmas day, which was about a week after the article was published, to apologize.
Harry and Meghan also released a statement on Monday. In their message, they stated that Clarkson's message was only directed to Harry despite the fact that Meghan was at the center of his vitriol. Their statement continued, "The contents of his correspondence were marked Private and Confidential. While a new public apology has been issued today by Mr. Clarkson, what remains to be addressed is his long-standing pattern of writing articles that spread hate rhetoric, dangerous conspiracy theories, and misogyny." They continued, "Unless each of his other pieces were also written 'in a hurry,' as he states, it is clear that this is not an isolated incident shared in haste, but rather a series of articles shared in hate."
Clarkson previously addressed the controversy surrounding his article, which was since pulled from The Sun's website. Although, it didn't exactly read as an apology to some, as he didn't answer for the implied violence that he expressed in the piece. The presenter said that he was referencing a scene from Game of Thrones with his imagery and wrote simply that he put his "foot in it."