British presenter Jeremy Clarkson announced Monday that he has apologized to Meghan Markle and her husband, Prince Harry, for a column in which he violently attacked the Duchess of Sussex.
Following the airing on Netflix last month of the docuseries devoted to the couple’s sensational departure from the British monarchy, which preceded the grand unboxing of Prince Harry’s memoir, Jeremy Clarkson had published a column in the tabloid. Sun detailing his distaste for the Duchess of Sussex.
He wrote about dreaming of being “paraded naked through the streets of every town in the UK, while the crowds chanted ‘Shame!’ and threw excrement at him.
Record of complaints
The article sparked a cascade of public condemnation and a record number of complaints (more than 20,000) to the British press regulator.
“Horrified” for having “caused so much pain”, the 62-year-old presenter invoked an “awkward reference to (the series) game of Thrones“.
The “regrets” expressed by the tabloid had been described as a “commentary stunt” by a spokesperson for Harry and Meghan, who regretted that the newspaper had not contacted the Duchess of Sussex to apologize to her.
“On Christmas morning, I emailed Harry and Meghan in California to apologize,” Jeremy Clarkson wrote in a lengthy Instagram post on Monday.
“I said I was shocked by what was said on TV, but the language I used in my column was shameful and I am deeply sorry,” he added.
Former host of the hit car show. top team explained that he “forgot” to mention the reference to game of Thrones. “I felt like she was actually asking for the heinous violence to fall on Meghan’s head.”
“Walk of Shame”
In one of the show’s most defining sequences, a woman undergoes a “walk of shame,” where she is forced to roam the streets naked while people throw trash at her.
At the center of many controversies in the past, sometimes accused of racist protests, Jeremy Clarkson had been fired from the BBC, which produces Top Gear, after physically and verbally attacking a producer.
Since then he has reformed the trio that made the success of top team with his bandmates James May and Richard Hammond on Amazon Prime, where he also has a show that follows his adventures as a farmer.
Source: BFM TV
