Jeremy Clarkson's daughter, Emily Clarkson, has joined her father in urging people to get tested for prostate cancer, following his announcement that he is in remission from the disease. The 66-year-old revealed in the latest episodes of the fifth series of Clarkson's Farm that he had been diagnosed with aggressive prostate cancer, which was discovered early.
Remission and Public Plea
In an interview with The Sunday Times, Clarkson confirmed that a PSA test two months ago showed no indication of cancer, and he is now in remission. In a social media post featuring a black-and-white image of the pair embracing while holding drinks, Emily Clarkson shared one of her father's quotes from that interview: "This is why I have to say to everybody who's reading this, please, please, please go and get checked. It's not uncomfortable, it's not undignified, and it's a no-brainer. I did, and that's why I'm sitting here talking to you." She also tagged the charity Prostate Cancer UK in the post.
Support Group with David Cameron and Giles Coren
Clarkson revealed he has met with former Prime Minister Lord David Cameron to discuss their prostate cancer diagnoses, along with other famous faces. He said: "I was talking to David (Cameron) about it earlier this morning. He said the amount of people that come up to him is mostly in public conveniences and say, if you hadn't owned up to it, I wouldn't have got checked, and they wouldn't have found it." Clarkson added that he regularly has lunch with Lord Cameron and food writer Giles Coren to discuss cancer. "So now there's a group of us, Giles Coren, David, me, one or two other people, and we meet for lunch every so often. Everybody has different Gleason scores, and everybody has different Stockholm and PSA scores. We all compare notes and I actually get muddled with what mine were. But it is quite funny watching people looking at us and going, 'that's quite an interesting group of people, what do they all share in common?'"
Emotional Impact and Treatment Complications
Clarkson said the news of his diagnosis has "landed harder than I thought it would." He added: "I've seen so many people die of cancer. It doesn't bear thinking about what it must be like to live knowing that an illness is going to kill you. It must be very, very, very distressing. I don't know the history of what happened to (former Olympic cyclist) Chris Hoy, but to be told your cancer is inoperable and to still carry on, you'd have to be incredibly brave." Speaking from a hospital bed at the end of the season finale, Clarkson revealed he had experienced complications during treatment, which he told The Times had been caused by him resuming a course of tablets he had been taking for earlier vascular and cardiac problems. He said: "That was horrific and it was all my own fault. I'd been on drugs for heart issues and I had to come off them during the cancer treatment. Two or three weeks after the cancer operation, I thought I'd better put myself back on those blood thinners. Big mistake, huge. It (resulted in) a very big emergency in the middle of the night. I'm not even going to go into the treatment that was required as a result of that, because it was horrible. I didn't ask a doctor, I just thought, 'I'm sure it will be all right to go back on blood thinners.'"
Health History and Public Advocacy
The diagnosis came almost two years after Clarkson underwent a heart procedure, which saw him fitted with two stents to improve blood flow. He said his doctor had told him to stop working following the operation and he had been advised to replace work with golf in a column for The Sun at the time. Clarkson added: "I am without a doubt, officially, the world's luckiest man." The TV presenter previously quit smoking after contracting pneumonia on holiday in Spain. In a post on the X account of his pub, The Farmer's Dog, Clarkson wrote: "The reason why I'm fine is because the doctors caught the prostate cancer early, and they caught it early because I got tested. Now, I know a lot of you will say, 'I don't want to be tested because it means someone will have to put their finger in me', but it's just a blood test these days… Look 10, 12,000 people, men, to be honest, men, die every year in the UK from prostate cancer, don't be one of them, get tested."
Clarkson's Farm and Future
Clarkson's Farm follows the long-time television presenter and his crew as they navigate the challenges of running Diddly Squat Farm near Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire. Since deciding to run his farm in 2019 and subsequently launching his popular reality series, Clarkson has become a vocal supporter of farmers and attended a protest in London against the Government's move to introduce inheritance tax on farmland in November 2024. The sixth series of the show is due to air in 2027.
