Jeremy Clarkson reveals cancer scare stress

Jeremy Clarkson has revealed that the incident which led to his sacking from Top Gear came after he was told that a lump on his tongue was “probably cancer”.

Clarkson was axed from the hit BBC car series after an investigation into an altercation with producer Oisin Tymon.

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Writing in the Sunday Times today (April 19), Clarkson regretfully added that other people facing such stress “manage to cope better than I did”.

“Two days before the ‘fracas’ I’d been told, sternly, by my doctor that a lump on my tongue was probably cancer and that I must get it checked out immediately,” he wrote.

“But I couldn’t do that. We were in the middle of a Top Gear series. And Top Gear always came first.”

He later received the all-clear from doctors.

The presenter said that he loved the show “like my own child”, describing it as an “all-consuming entity, a many-tentacled global monster that was dysfunctional and awkward and mad”.

Clarkson added that he initially planned to retire from television, but had since decided to keep working, and do another car show. However, he said that he did not know if this project would be with former co-hosts Richard Hammond and James May.

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