Jeremy Clarkson reveals ‘aggressive’ prostate cancer diagnosis during ‘Clarkson’s Farm’ episode
Jeremy Clarkson, the British television presenter of Top Gear and The Grand Tour, has revealed he has been diagnosed with prostate cancer.
Clarkson shared the news during Season 5’s final two Clarkson’s Farm episodes, released on Wednesday. He said his cancer is “aggressive” but had been discovered early.
“I disappeared off the other week and I had a biopsy, and it is cancer, and it’s aggressive, but it’s really early,” Clarkson said in clips first aired on Wednesday morning.
It is unclear when the episode was filmed, but the BBC reports that the series was shot in 2024 and 2025.
The 66-year-old said he expected to be “fine” but would be out of action “for a while.” He said he had known “since May.”
He said in the Prime Video show that he had undergone an operation to remove the cancerous section. “I won’t know whether it’s worked or not until November, probably,” he said. “The prostate, 10% of it’s dead, the 10% where the cancer is.”
Speaking from a hospital bed at the end of the season finale, Clarkson said he had experienced complications during treatment. “We started Season 5 with me in a hospital bed, and here we are at the end of Season 5, and I’m back in a hospital bed,” he said.
“What I wanted to say was if this is all successful, I’ll see you for Season 6, and if it isn’t, I won’t. Take care, everyone.”
Clarkson hinted at the episode’s content on Instagram on Tuesday, telling followers he had some “somber news” and warned fans that the upcoming episodes were a “difficult watch.”
He said: “Ordinarily, we try to keep the show bucolic and charming, and cheerful, but two episodes which drop in the middle of the night tonight are, they’re none of those things, really.”
Clarkson presented Top Gear on the BBC for 25 years, from 1988 to 1999 and again, for the show’s relaunch, from 2002 to 2015, until his contract was not renewed. The hugely popular motoring show is one of the company’s most successful global exports and ran for 240 episodes over 33 series. At one point, it was estimated to be watched by 350 million people, with Clarkson its most recognizable star. He followed it up with big-budget, and hugely successful, Prime Video show Grand Tour, from 2016 to 2024.
In October 2024, Clarkson underwent a heart procedure in which he was fitted with two stents to improve blood flow to the heart. At the time, he wrote in a column for the Sun that his doctor had advised that he stop working. He’s been filming his reality show, which follows Clarkson and his team as they navigate the challenges of running Diddly Squat Farm in Oxfordshire, England, since 2019. The sixth series of the show is expected to land in summer 2027,
How common is prostate cancer?
Prostate cancer is the second-most-common cancer for American men, following skin cancer. About one in eight men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer during their lifetime, according to the American Cancer Society (ACS). The risk is higher in older men — about six in 10 prostate cancers are diagnosed in men aged 65 and over — and in Black men in the U.S. and the Caribbean. The exact role that diet, obesity, smoking and other factors play is less clear.
ACS currently estimates that there will be about 333,830 new cases of prostate cancer in 2026 and roughly 36,320 deaths from the illness.