A Jeremy Clarkson column in the Sun about the Duchess of Sussex has provoked outcry online, with social media users labelling it “vile”, “horrific” and “abusive”.
In an article for the paper published on Friday, Clarkson wrote that he loathed Meghan “on a cellular level”. He said he was “dreaming of the day when she is made to parade naked through the streets of every town in Britain while the crowds chant, ‘Shame!’ and throw lumps of excrement at her”.
He added: “Everyone who’s my age thinks the same way.”
The comments have drawn widespread condemnation. The comedian John Bishop tweeted that the remarks were a “blatant appeal to incite humiliation and violence on a woman”.
The presenter Carol Vorderman tweeted: “NO, Jeremy Clarkson. Not on any level, in any circumstance, is it OK to write this stuff about any woman and absolutely NO to ‘everyone who’s my age thinks the same’.”
The author Philip Pullman wrote: “That Jeremy Clarkson can write things like that, and publish them unashamed, tells us all we need to know about the way Rupert Murdoch has poisoned and rotted our public life.”
Clarkson’s daughter Emily, who hosts the Should I Delete That? podcast, was praised by many on social media for an Instagram post that said: “I want to make it very clear that I stand against everything my dad said about Meghan Markle and I remain standing in support of those who are targeted with online hatred.”
The comedian Dom Joly said he was “literally gobsmacked” at Clarkson’s “utterly vile and disgusting comments”. He added: “What is it about these type of men that triggers them so?”
His fellow comic Jason Manford tweeted a photo of an excerpt from the article with the caption: “If you can defend Clarkson in this, then please don’t reply to me, just unfollow and block and move on. We are never going to agree.”
Meanwhile, the British social activist and chief executive of the Five Foundation, Nimco Ali, wrote: “A young Black woman opens up about her struggle with suicidal thoughts as a result of the abuse she got from the media, and this is how some men in the media react. This is absolutely horrific.”
In his column for The Sun, the journalist and former Top Gear presenter told readers that he hates Markle ‘not like I hate Nicola Sturgeon or Rose West’, but on a ‘cellular level’. ‘At night, I’m unable to sleep as I lie there, grinding my teeth and dreaming of the day when she is made to parade naked through the streets of every town in Britain while the crowds chant, “Shame!” and throw lumps of excrement at her,’ Clarkson wrote.
Clarkson’s daughter Emily has since spoken out against her father’s column, writing on Instagram ‘I want to make it clear that I stand against everything my father wrote about Meghan Markle. I remain standing in support of those that are targeted with online hatred.’ She was joined by celebrities such as Carol Vorderman, John Bishop, and Kathy Burke who all condemned Clarkson’s comments.
Now, as Clarkson’s name trends on Google with over 200,000 new searches – mostly phrases like ‘Jeremy Clarkson Sun Meghan Markle article comments’ and ‘What did Jeremy Clarkson say about Meghan Markle?’ – the presenter has been forced to apologise.
‘Oh dear. I’ve rather put my foot in it,’ he tweeted. ‘In a column I wrote about Meghan, I made a clumsy reference to a scene in Game of Thrones and this has gone down badly with a great many people. I’m horrified to have caused so much hurt and I shall be more careful in future.’
His apology isn’t going down particularly well, with domestic abuse campaigner David Challen responding ‘There is nothing clumsy about the misogynistic intent you put in your words, Jeremy. Don't hide behind a TV show reference, you said Markle “used some vivid bedroom promises to turn him [Harry] into a warrior of woke. Even you're daughter says this is misogyny and bullying.’
But the incident as a whole proves exactly how hating Meghan Markle is still a steadfast way to go viral, and perhaps that’s why men like Clarkson do it.
In the past two years alone, Clarkson has publicly attacked Markle in his columns or on TV at least seven times. In March 2021, after her and Prince Harry’s Oprah interview, he dubbed her a ‘silly little cable TV actress’ and accused her of ‘simpering victimhood’ in another column for The Sun. ‘he is much revered by the young and the stupid who believe that her brand of simpering victimhood will one day bring down the monarchy, but it won’t,’ he wrote.
In October 2020, he referenced her and Prince Harry’s efforts to reduce their carbon footprint (releasing a statement about their intention to make their non-profit organisation Archewell ‘net zero by 2030’) in an article about the climate crisis that salaciously interpreted her efforts as a personal attack on anyone who drives. ‘When Meghan Markle told me to leave the car at home, I wanted to shoot a polar bear in the middle of its face,’ he wrote.
Where does this weird obsession with tearing her down come from? Unlike Piers Morgan, who appears to despite Meghan for the mere fact she was unwilling to entertain a relationship with him (but more on that here), Clarkson has no obvious link to Markle. There was no sordid past relationship, no examples of them ever working together, it doesn’t appear that Clarkson has actually ever met Meghan at all. He, like much of the other people that despise her without ever knowing her, has no real basis for his hatred at all except from what he’s heard from the now well-documented manipulative tabloid media.
Considering his well-educated, successful self is more than capable of deducing how a misogynist tabloid media can infect the brains of the many to despise a woman who has not harmed anyone, one can only assume that he sees the value in hating Meghan publicly brings personal success. That is, if personal success means remaining relevant and going viral no matter the moral cost.
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