No television show is as synonymous with cars and car culture as the original BBC version of Top Gear. Unfortunately, no car show host is as prone to controversy as Jeremy Clarkson. Over the years Clarkson's abrasive and decidedly un-PC sense of humor has managed to piss off... well, pretty much everyone.
Since Top Gear relaunched in 2002 it's always been punctuated by a kind of nationalistic, libertarian, "fuck the Prius and environmental regulations" eyeroll-inducing sort of old white dude humor. No one encapsulates this more than Clarkson does, and while it's kind of part of the show's character, it's also gotten them hit with accusations of racism, sexism and homophobia.
Some of Clarkson's gaffes have been silly and blown out of proportion as his list of critics and enemies continues to grow, particularly in Europe. The show is meant to be edgy and controversial, and some will argue they're just doing what's expected of them.
In other instances Clarkson and Top Gear have been unquestionably offensive and hard for even the most ardent fans to defend. The fact that the show airs on the publicly-funded BBC always adds to the controversy.
Today the world found out that some "fracas" between Clarkson and a producer — the nature of which hasn't been disclosed yet — led to his suspension and postponement of the airing of a new episode. (Update: He reportedly tried to punch a producer last week.)
While we don't know what happened yet, it has put Britain's most controversial broadcaster who isn't a sexual predator back in the public eye for his long list of fracases. Here are most of the ones from the last decade, in chronological order. Please let us know if we missed any.
There are a lot.
June 2006 - Clarkson calls bus drivers "little Hitler bastards."
You automatically lose your argument when you invoke Hitler, but Clarkson's remarks in a newspaper column infuriated members of the UK's Transport & General Workers' Union. In the column he said a bus driver who doesn't let a car go first is an "inconsiderate jumped-up little Hitler bastard" who should be "shot in the middle of his face." But how do you really feel, Jeremy?
December 2006 - BBC apologizes after Clarkson calls a car "a bit gay."
During a discussion with the audience about the Daihatsu Copen sports car, one man described the car as "a bit gay," to which Clarkson replied "A bit gay, yes, very ginger beer," which is Cockney rhyming slang for "queer." The BBC condemned Clarkson's remarks.
February 2007 - Clarkson and crew get pelted with rocks in the Deep South.
Top Gear's infamous U.S. special involved them driving through deeply conservative rural Alabama with "Hillary for President," "Man-love rules OK," and "NASCAR sucks" painted on their cars. While this one didn't create an international diplomatic crisis, it did get their van pelted with rocks. (For the record, as both an American and a Texan, I think this one was fantastic.)
March 2007 - Clarkson apologizes after asking Hammond if he's a "a mental" after his head injury.
Hammond suffered brain damage following a 280 mph car crash on a Top Gear shoot in 2006. When he returned to the show after months of recovery, Clarkson asked him if he was "a mental" now, and May asked if he "dribbled." The BBC had to apologize again.
November 2008 - Clarkson makes a joke about truck drivers murdering prostitutes.
The BBC received hundreds of complaints when Clarkson did a segment on driving a commercial truck where he described their daily routine as "Change gear, change gear, check mirror, murder a prostitute, change gear, change gear, murder. That's a lot of effort in a day." The network responded by saying the comment was meant to "comically exaggerate and make ridiculous an unfair urban myth."
2009 - Top Gear slammed for suicide, WWII joke.
An episode in 2009's Series 13 involved Clarkson and James May making spoof ads for Volkswagen, one of which said the Scirocco TDI could get from Berlin to Warsaw in one tank, and another that featured a suicide onscreen. The BBC was again inundated with complaints.
November 2009 - Clarkson pisses off Romania.
Visiting the Romanian countryside for an episode of the show, Clarkson referred to the nation as "Borat country," made jokes about communism, and said Gypsies "can be violent if they don't like the look of you." The Romanian government complained about the episode.
February 2011 - Clarkson and Richard Hammond make jokes about Mexicans.
This one's not just on Clarkson, but it's haunted the show for years. When talking about the Mexican-made Mastretta sports car, Hammond referred to it as "lazy," "feckless," and "flatulent." After that Hammond said, "I'm sorry, but just imagine waking up and remembering you're Mexican," and Clarkson added "It'd be brilliant because you could just go straight back to sleep again!" Hilarious.
March 2011 - Top Gear gets sued by Tesla over a "rigged" test of the Tesla Roadster.
The Tesla Roadster may have been barely two steps above a car Jalopnik would purchase off Craigslist for rallycross in terms of build quality, but Elon Musk didn't take kindly to a test that showed the car losing its charge and having to be pushed into a garage. After Tesla took a sales hit, Musk argued the scene was staged. The lawsuit got dismissed in 2013 but Musk was still mad about it years later.
November 2011 - Clarkson calls for the public execution of striking workers in Britain.
Turns out he's not a fan of unions. Shocker.
July 2013 - A Clarkson review pisses off the British and the Chinese.
Originally British and now Chinese-owned automaker MG is a far cry from what it used to be, but when Clarkson said the MG6 was "as Chinese as a chopstick," he managed to piss off both nations — not to mention MG.
October 2013 (But since, like, always) - Clarkson gets into old man Twitter fight with Piers Morgan.
There's a long running hatefest, both in person and in print, between Clarkson and Morgan. Clarkson even punched Morgan in the face once at a British awards show. Then again, Piers Morgan is a giant shitwaffle himself, so nobody feels bad for him.
March 2014 - Clarkson offends Asian people by using the word "slope" on air.
"That is a proud moment. But, there's a slope on it," Clarkson said, referring to a bridge in Burma. But he said it while a construction worker passed over it, leading people to wonder whether he was using an antiquated racial slur or not. An India-born British actress filed suit against the BBC in response.
May 2014 - Clarkson accused of using the the N-word in rehearsal footage.
Clarkson was accused of using probably the most hated word in the English language while reciting a children's nursery rhyme chant during unaired rehearsal footage from an episode that leaked to The Mirror. He later offered a reasonable explanation and apologized but conceded he'd likely be fired if he fucked up again.
October 2014 - Top Gear gets kicked out of Argentina over "offensive" license plate.
While filming the Patagonia Christmas special, the hosts were pelted with stones and forced to hide from a mob of angry Argentinians furious over a Porsche 928 license plate that supposedly referenced the Falklands War with the digits "H982 FKL." It later turned out the plate on the Porsche came that way.
This one was definitely stupid and kind of a non-controversy, but Clarkson's critics jumped on it hard. When your show has a long history of pissing people off on purpose, it's not too hard to believe that they would want to do this too.
Graphic credit Raphael Orlove
Contact the author at patrick@jalopnik.com.