With all the controversy and bad press that Chris Evans’ new Top Gear series is getting, you’d expect him to be keen to slag off outgoing host Jeremy Clarkson at any opportunity, but instead he’s defended his rival.
Evans has said he thinks it’s ‘bizarre’ that motor-mouth Jeremy was sacked for ‘losing his rag over his dinner’ despite avoiding the chop in several prior incidents, the Daily Mail reports.
Clarkson was infamously suspended and then given the boot by the Beeb after getting involved in a ‘fracas’ with Top Gear producer Oisin Tymon.
Or to put it in more plain English, he thumped Tymon after being told there was no hot food available after a day of filming, like a big petulant baby.
Speaking to GQ magazine about whether Clarkson deserved to be fired, Evans said:
What is more fascinating is that he went for what he went for, considering what had gone on before.
If you look at the chronology of controversy of Top Gear over the last five or six years, it is bizarre that he went for losing his rag over his dinner when there had been international incidents before that.
Clarkson was a notoriously controversial figure in his time as the Top Gear host and was accused several times of making racist comments.
Incidents, of course, included Clarkson saying cars from Mexico were ‘lazy’ and calling Romania ‘Borat country.
Most recently, he managed to piss off the whole country of Argentina by driving a car with the numberplate H982 FKL, which many Argentinians believed was a reference to the Falklands War.
Despite taking Clarkson’s old job, Evans said Jezza remains his hero, even though he hasn’t spoken to him in some time.
He said:
We used to get on. I don’t know if we still get on because I haven’t seen him in ages. But he is one of my heroes. He’s entertaining. He was great on Top Gear and I love his writing.
He is funny. He deconstructs things really well. They say if you can explain complicated things to a six-year-old you know what you’re talking about, and I am like his six-year-old.
Is it just us or did Evans basically just admit that he’s not going to be as good as Clarkson?
More of a concept than a journalist, Tom Percival was forged in the bowels of Salford University from which he emerged grasping a Masters in journalism.
Since then his rise has been described by himself as ‘meteoric’ rising to the esteemed rank of Social Editor at UNILAD as well as working at the BBC, Manchester Evening News, and ITV.
He credits his success to three core techniques, name repetition, personality mirroring, and never breaking off a handshake.