Jeremy Clarkson has been mostly quiet after being suspended by the BBC for allegedly punching a producer.
At a charity event in London last night, he spoke his mind a little bit, in typical carefree Clarkson fashion. And UK newspaper The Guardian has video.
The videos, shown below, only catch a brief few seconds of Clarkson’s off-the-cuff remarks, but according to The Guardian he said a bit more than what’s shown.
“The BBC have fucked themselves,” the paper quotes Clarkson as having said on stage. “It was a great show and they fucked it up.”
The event was a charity auction, and Clarkson was there to raffle off a chance to ride shotgun in a lap around the Top Gear test track with him at the wheel. The paper reports that the opportunity sold for £100,000—nearly $150,000 at today’s exchange rates.
According to The Guardian, Clarkson told the audience: “I didn’t foresee my sacking but I would like to do one last lap. So I’ll go down to Surrey and I’ll do one last lap of that track before the fucking bastards sack me.”
“I’ll drive somebody around in whatever I can get hold of. I’m sacked so it’s probably an Austin Maestro. So who knows? But anyway it will be my last ever lap of the Top Gear track,” the Top Gear star added.
“There was an 18-year waiting list to be in the audience of Top Gear, but the BBC has fucked themselves. It was a great show and they’ve fucked it up. Tonight’s the night when you have the opportunity,” he said, according to The Guardian.
- Top Gear Fans Drive Tank to BBC to Deliver “Save Clarkson” Petition
- Report: Late Dinner Caused Clarkson to Punch Producer
- Watch Jeremy Clarkson’s Involuntary Ice-Bucket Challenge, Voluntary NSFW Reaction
Fans aren’t taking the threat of a Clarkson-less Top Gear lightly. An online petition to “save Jeremy Clarkson” netted one million e-signatures, which were symbolically delivered to the BBC’s front door today by a tank-driving Stig.
On the video clip shown below, Clarkson concludes his mini speech by saying “I’ll be a bit tearful when I do it, but fuck it, let’s do it.”
Despite Clarkson’s claims that he’s been “sacked,” we still don’t have official word from the BBC—the network’s official report on its internal investigation is due out next week. And, frankly, this little soliloquy is a textbook example of Clarkson being Clarkson, saying some outlandish and incendiary things in front of an audience that’s been dying to hear it.
Regardless of what happens, don’t cry too hard for Clarkson. No matter what the BBC decides, he’ll be just fine. Here are two snippets from his on-stage speech:
This story originally appeared on roadandtrack.com via Autoweek.
from Car and Driver Blog http://ift.tt/1Ff2AbK
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