Why Jeremy Clarkson Cut Ties with Richard Hammond and James May

It’s the end of an era for Jeremy Clarkson and his Grand Tour co-stars Richard Hammond and James May, and now the presenter has revealed the reason the trio are cutting professional ties.

Clarkson is planning a final appearance with the pair in a show called One for the Road later this year, ending their time together on screen which has spanned more than 20 years.

What’s the reason they’re bringing their time together to a close? Because Clarkson claims he’s “too fat” to get into cars he wants to drive.

“After 36 years of talking about cars on television, I’m packing it in, because I’m too old and fat to get into the cars that I like and not interested in driving those I don’t,” he told The Sunday Times.

“What this means of course is that my 22-year partnership with James May and Richard Hammond is now over. You can see our final road trip together on Amazon Prime very soon. It’s emotional.”

The trio “thought long and hard about how we should end our 22-year partnership, but in the end, we just went to the end of the alphabet” and chose to record the special in Zimbabwe.

Clarkson added that the trio were happy their relationship didn’t disintegrate “in a blizzard of outrage and tabloid headlines”, but was “landed safely and gently”.

“Was it sad when the director called, ‘That’s a wrap,’ for the very last time? Yes, it was. Especially as some of the crew had been with us when we were there before. People think of Top Gear and The Grand Tour as being James, Richard and me. But it isn’t. We’ve had the same crews for years. We’ve all grown up together.

“We’ve camped together. S*** our lungs out together, laughed our arses off together. These are the guys who really made those shows. They’re the ones who kept the cameras and the microphones going even when it was cold or dangerous, so that Andy [Wilman, producer] had his 1,200 hours of material to sift through.”

Source: The Sunday Times, Amazon Prime