Chris Tarrant has given his honest verdict on being replaced by Jeremy Clarkson on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?
The legendary broadcaster, 78, hosted the hit ITV quiz show for 16 years until 2014. Former Top Gear host Clarkson, 65, took over as presenter in 2018.
Tarrant admitted he hasn’t tuned in to watch the revamped series since leaving the show.
"I don't watch it now,” he told the Express while promoting his new book, For The Love Of Bears.
“Socially, I get on fine with Jeremy, and this sounds really tough, but I just don't watch the show - even when I was on it.”
He added: “I did 700 programmes. I watched the first one just to make sure it looked alright. I think I watched another one where Judith Keppel won a million, and that's it."
Tarrant started moving away from regular TV work in the 2010s and said in 2024 that he wanted to retire to focus on spending quality time with his family.
The veteran host later revealed he didn’t want to spend the rest of his life “locked away in a studio”.
“52 years is a long time on air. I loved what I did. I had a really good time,” he told MailOnline last month.
“But I went to the funerals of five really good mates, who were about the same age as me, and I thought, ‘I don’t know how long I’ve got left in life, but I don’t want to spend it locked away in a studio.’”
One of those friends was Sir Terry Wogan, who died in 2016 aged 77.
Tarrant added that he briefly considered retiring in 2014 after having a mini-stroke, which left him needing long-term speech therapy.
“I had a lucky escape. I can chat to you now, [my body] is working. But I did have to have speech therapy. It took a while to get everything back. It was scary,” he said.
Despite publicly announcing his retirement in December 2024, the presenter recently revealed he still gets job offers from producers.
Tarrant confessed to turning down hosting The Masked Singer and added that he didn’t want to host a travel show as he didn’t want to be told “where to go, what to do and, you know, schedules”.
