Jeremy Clarkson has responded to criticism from singer and podcaster Will Young about a recent episode of The Grand Tour.

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Young had taken to Twitter to accuse Clarkson, along with co-hosts Richard Hammond and James May, of “normalising shaming homophobic narratives” during a series three instalment of their Amazon motoring show.

The segment in question saw Hammond and May mock Clarkson for driving a Wrangler Jeep in Colombia. “Isn’t that a popular car with the gay community,” says May, before Clarkson is ribbed for wearing a pink shirt and It’s Raining Men by The Weather Girls is played on the car’s stereo.

Young went on to describe the former Top Gear trio as “3 heterosexual men SO uncomfortable with their sexuality that they reference in some lame way a Wrangler Jeep being a gay man’s car” and labels their content “shaming archaic tripe”.

But Clarkson has used his Sun column to hit back, telling readers that Young “went berserk on Twitter” and claiming “only the Guardian got what he was on about”.

He continued: “Many gay people who’d seen the show said they couldn’t see a problem. None of my leftie friends could either.

"One even said I should tell him to stop being so gay,” he wrote, adding, “I wouldn’t do that though”.

Clarkson concluded with a mocking apology. “I will apologise to Will for causing him some upset and reassure him that I know I’m not homophobic as I very much enjoy watching lesbians on the internet.”

The feud looks unlikely to end there. Young had already followed up his tweets with an update that Prime Video had not responded to him and that he would pursue the issue with Ofcom instead.

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“Is there a legal case?” he added. “Who knows……. watch this space”.

Authors

Susanna LazarusAssociate Editor, RadioTimes.com
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