Former Top Gear and The Grand Tour host Jeremy Clarkson has been diagnosed with prostate cancer. The auto journalist, 66, announced his condition in the series finale of his current program, Clarkson’s Farm, Reuters reports.
Clarkson hinted at the disclosure in an Instagram video he posted prior to the episode going live, prefacing it by saying he had “somber news” for fans of the ordinarily “bucolic, charming, and cheerful” documentary series.
“But the final two episodes, which drop in the middle of the night tonight, are … they’re none of those things, really,” he went on. “They’re a difficult watch.”
“They’re really, really difficult.”
Clarkson told others on the show that the disease was caught last May during a routine checkup and was discovered “really early.”
“If I hadn’t have got myself checked out and they hadn’t caught the problem early, this could well have been my last harvest,” he said. “It’s only because they did catch it early, there’s every hope that I’ll be harvesting this farm for many, many years to come.”
He says he had an operation that removed 10% of his prostate.
Clarkson, along with fellow former Top Gear presenters Richard Hammond and James May, stepped down from hosting The Grand Tour in 2024; the three have largely pursued non-automotive subjects since departing the Amazon series.
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