The Grand Tour Trio Allegedly Blocked From Airplane By Pissed-Off Argentinian

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New in the world of Jeremy Clarkson: drama. (That was a joke.) The Sun reports that the The Grand Tour host got into a bit of a quarrel with an Argentinian airline attendant who was pissed off about the entertainer’s jokes about the Falklands War, a war that Argentina thoroughly and definitively lost.

The tabloid says the incident happened at the Stuttgart airport just as the three presenters were boarding a British Airways flight home to England. An airline worker named Manuel Pereira reportedly wouldn’t let the three co-hosts on the plane. The Sun quotes Clarkson’s description of the incident:

Our security guys turned round and said, ‘They’re not letting us on.’... I said to this little bald guy, ‘What’s the problem?’ He had a big smile on his face. He said, ‘You’ve missed it.’ We said we had left the lounge when we were told, and he said, ‘I’m from Argentina so f*** you.’

Clarkson went on to poke more fun at Argentina, saying the man “marched off looking pleased with himself, no doubt to enjoy a disgusting dinner of refried beans...”

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Clarkson made headlines two years ago after basically trolling the entire nation of Argentina in a Porsche supposedly with a license plate aimed at making fun of the war between that country and the United Kingdom. And according to the television host, it was this trolling that brought the airline worker to refuse them entry onto the plane. Clarkson went on, saying:

He’s a stupid, bitter and twisted little man who can’t get it into his head that Argentina’s armed forces are completely useless.

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He continued:

This ignorant little worm made us miss our plane and he will pay for it...The police said it was a hate crime and he would be arrested. Yes, even the Germans were 100 per cent on our side — for once.

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Now, this bit about the Falklands War could all be a bunch of bullshit, because The Telegraph mentions a statement from a Stuttgart airport representative, who says Pereira is actually Spanish, not Argentinian.

Not to mention, according to the news site, the airport and the local Reutlingen police both say Clarkson and his team, who had been hanging out in the airport lounge, “missed several calls” to board the plane, which British Airways had expected to be late, but ended up being on time.

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The police said they hadn’t heard anything about a “hate crime,” and that they “doubt the Falklands were mentioned” in the argument.

There was also some talk about Pereira saying the hosts were too drunk to board the plane (which, if we’re honest, wouldn’t be all that surprising), but really, we don’t know what the hell went on at the Stuttgart airport, just that the airport is investigating the incident, and that ultimately, Clarkson wound up happily at his destination:

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That airport attendant didn’t wind up so happy, as he’s been hounded by journalists ever since the incident, The Guardian reports. Hounded so much, in fact, that the president of the International Transport Workers’ Federation had to step in, saying:

In response [to Pereira just doing his job], Jeremy Clarkson unleashed a torrent of unbelievable abuse and now disproven allegations. We now learn that Mr Pereira, the innocent party in this rather sordid little affair, is being constantly hounded by some journalists. That has to stop now.

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Katharina Wesenick, an officer at at Pereira’s Berlin-based trade union, ver.di, said:

On behalf of Mr Pereira, we would ask the press to act responsibly and cease this unjust harassment. The airport has investigated and established that this was a clear-cut case of an airport worker having to refuse boarding to passengers who had arrived late from the lounge, where they had missed the urgent reminders.

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Maybe Clarkson had a bit of a hissy fit, here, and this poor airline worker got the worst of it. That seems about right.