Jeremy Clarkson’s suspension from the BBC’s Top Gear is just the latest development in a controversial career, from accusations of racism to insulting lorry drivers.
Last year Clarkson and the Top Gear crew were forced to flee Argentina after they were pelted with stones by a crowd incensed that one of their vehicles had a number plate that appeared to refer to the Falklands conflict. The incident sparked a diplomatic row, with the BBC has rejecting a demand by the Argentinian ambassador to apologise.
In March last year Clarkson was accused of “casual racism” during a Top Gear special in which the team built a bridge over a Burmese river. As a man walked across the bridge Clarkson made a comment that there was a “slope on it”.
In 2013, Clarkson was accused of using the N-word while chanting the “eeny, meeny, miny, moe” rhyme in a clip that did not air on the motoring show. Clarkson posted a video apology online saying he had tried to obscure the word but that his efforts “weren’t quite good enough”.
In February 2011, a Top Gear special sparked a complaint from the Indian High Commission that it was full of “cheap jibes” and “tasteless humour”, following gags such as building a toilet in the back of a Jaguar because all tourists who visit the country get diarrhoea.
In July of that year, singer George Michael branded Clarkson “homophobic” and “pig ugly” after the presenter made a joke at his expense. Clarkson said in a review of a Jaguar XKR-S: “It’s very fast and very, very loud. And then in the corners it will get its tail out more readily than George Michael.”
A year earlier, the show was forced to apologise to the Mexican ambassador to the UK, who complained about a special in which presenter Richard Hammond described Mexicans as “lazy, feckless and flatulent” with his co-presenters Clarkson and James May branding their food “refried sick”.
In the same year, Clarkson also allegedly made comments to “star in a reasonably priced car” Alastair Campbell about being “bummed” in scenes that did not make it on air.
In February 2009, Clarkson called Gordon Brown a “one-eyed Scottish idiot”, then months later described him as a “cunt” in unbroadcast comments.
That October, he told Top Gear magazine that TV bosses were obsessed with having “black Muslim lesbians” on shows to balance white heterosexual men: “The problem is that television executives have got it into their heads that if one presenter on a show is a blond-haired, blue-eyed heterosexual boy, the other must be a black Muslim lesbian. Chalk and cheese, they reckon, works.”
In November 2008 Clarkson sparked more than 1,000 complaints to the BBC when, while driving a truck, he said to the other Top Gear presenters: “What matters to lorry drivers? Murdering prostitutes? Fuel economy?” Media watchdog Ofcom cleared Clarkson, ruling that the comments were justified by the context in which they were made.
• This article was amended on 11 March 2015 to make clear it was Top Gear presenter Richard Hammond who made a comment on the show about Mexican people
