Former Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson has said he feels scared to be a newspaper columnist following the shooting of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk.
Kirk, a close ally of President Donald Trump and the face of right-wing campus activism, was fatally shot on 10 September while speaking to a group of Utah Valley University students.
“For the first time in my life, I’m genuinely frightened about being a newspaper columnist,” Clarkson wrote on X/Twitter shortly after Kirk’s death, aged 31, was confirmed.
One user suggested that Clarkson, who writes a regular column for The Sunday Times News Review, should stick to writing about cars.
He replied: “But what if someone disagrees with my view that, say, the new M5 is a bit dull. Everyone is so angry all the time these days.”
Many users pointed out that Clarkson had often used violent imagery in his writing and interviews, which he has expressed regret for in the past.
In 2022, the presenter apologised for a column in The Sun, in which dreamt Meghan Markle would be made to parade naked through Britain while a crowd chanted “shame” and threw “excrement” at her.
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Meanwhile in 2011, Clarkson apologised for saying he would have striking public sector workers “shot”. He said: “I would take them outside and execute them in front of their families.”
Broadcaster Piers Morgan also commented on Kirk’s death, calling the attack an “appalling assault on free speech and democracy” that is “disgusting and heart-breaking”.
Trump announced Kirk’s death in a Truth Social post and said the Turning Point USA founder was “loved and admired by all”.
“Charlie inspired millions, and tonight all who knew him and loved him are united in shock and horror,” he said.
The shooting follows a streak of political violence across the US in recent months, including the assassinations of a Democratic state lawmaker and her husband in Minnesota in June and two attempted assassinations targeting Trump in 2024.
Hopes for the fast capture of Kirk’s suspected shooter began to fade Wednesday evening as FBI Director Kash Patel announced that authorities had released a person he had said was a key “subject” of a multiagency manhunt.
More than 12 hours after Kirk’s shooting, which Utah Governor Spencer Cox described as an “assassination”, no suspects were in custody.
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