Jeremy Clarkson pondered ‘just disappearing’ from Clarkson’s Farm amid cancer diagnosis
‘I had to wrestle with it for a long time in my head,’ the TV personality said
By Adam White
Jeremy Clarkson grappled with going public with his prostate cancer diagnosis, and even wondered if he ought to just “disappear” from his hit Prime Video Clarkson’s Farm while secretly undergoing treatment.
The 66-year-old TV personality revealed he had been diagnosed with an “aggressive” form of prostate cancer in the final episodes of Clarkson’s Farm’s fifth season. He told his colleagues, co-stars Charlie Ireland and Kaleb Cooper, that he underwent a biopsy after a medical check-up and was told the cancer was aggressive, but had been caught at a “really early” stage.
In the episodes, Clarkson said he expected to undergo surgery within weeks and that he would be “slightly out of action” during recovery. He added that he had hoped to finish the harvest before beginning treatment, but said it would instead fall “slap bang in the middle”.
Now, in a new interview, Clarkson has admitted being unsure whether to speak publicly about his treatment.
“I was really hoping, truly, truly hoping that I could get last year’s harvest done, and then go for the operation, because then I wouldn’t need to tell anybody, which is the whole Clarkson mentality,” he told The Sunday Times. “You are not allowed to be ill, and if you are ill, you certainly don’t own up to it. You just go to work as usual. And I was praying I could do that. But then that wasn’t possible.”
He added that he sometimes imagined just not appearing in the series, but that he changed his mind.
“I had to wrestle with it for a long time in my head, thinking I can’t just disappear from the show, because everybody would say, ‘Well, where are you?’ So I decided I’m going to have to come clean, I’m going to have to break the Clarkson policy of being an illness bore and admit to it, and as a result I’m now sitting down with you talking about it, which goes against the grain.”
News of Clarkson’s health instead became a key storyline in the fifth series of Clarkson’s Farm, which follows him as he takes over control of a 1000-acre farm in the Cotswolds.
The Top Gear and Grand Tour host has developed it into Diddly Squat farm, opening up his own pub, The Farmer’s Dog, as well as a farm shop run by his partner, Lisa Hogan.
While Clarkson has been no stranger to controversy over the years, his rebrand in the countryside has been a success – with Countryfile presenter Adam Henson, who is neighbours with Clarkson, recently singing his praises.
“It seems to me from the people around him and from his own voice that he’s really found a passion in farming,” Henson said. “He’s a great advocate for British agriculture, and he’s tied up with some great people who work on the programme with him.”
Clarkson is not the only star of the series to have been diagnosed with prostate cancer: the first was farmhand Gerald Cooper, who revealed in series three that he had been diagnosed with prostate cancer before later being declared cancer-free in 2024.
Prostate cancer develops in the prostate gland, a small gland below the bladder that helps produce semen. It is often slow-growing and symptomless in its early stages, and the risk rises with age, family history, and certain genetic mutations.
Common symptoms include frequent urination, difficulty peeing, weak urine flow, and blood in urine or semen; advanced cases may cause pelvic or back pain and unexplained weight loss.
According to Prostate Cancer UK, prostate cancer is now the most commonly diagnosed cancer in the UK, with more than 64,000 new cases recorded in 2022.
Clarkson’s cancer diagnosis comes less than two years after a major heart scare. In the opening episode of season five of Clarkson’s Farm, he revealed doctors had told him he may have been days away from a heart attack after discovering severe coronary artery disease.