The moment was picked up on by eagle-eyed fans on Sunday
Jeremy Clarkson is facing accusations of inadvertently assisting a Who Wants To Be A Millionaire contestant after his visible reaction appeared to steer the player away from a wrong answer.
During Sunday evening’s broadcast of the ITV quiz programme, the presenter hosted Arunan Jeyakumar from Newbury Park, who was asked to identify which dance would typically accompany rock and roll music from the options of Jive, Waltz, Cha-Cha or Rumba.
As Jeyakumar deliberated aloud, mentioning that the waltz was appealing to him whilst ruling out Cha-Cha and Rumba, Mr Clarkson raised his hand to his face and rubbed his eye in what viewers interpreted as an exasperated gesture.
The former Top Gear presenter remained silent throughout, but Mr Jeyakumar subsequently switched his selection to Jive, which proved correct.
Sharp-eyed viewers were quick to highlight the incident on social media platform X.
One fan directly addressed the presenter, writing: “@JeremyClarkson How you stifled the laugh when he said the Waltz was calling out to him, I thought you were going to lose it.”
Mr Clarkson’s response to the observation was characteristically brief, consisting of just a single word: “Unbelievable.”
The exchange prompted debate among fans about whether the host’s body language had effectively given away the answer, providing Mr Jeyakumar with an unfair advantage during the crucial moment.
Despite surviving that particular question thanks to his last-minute change of heart, the contestant’s luck would not hold for much longer in the programme.
Mr Jeyakumar’s run on the programme came to an abrupt end on the very next question, which asked him to identify which option was not a capital city from Bratislava, Sofia, Istanbul and Warsaw.
The contestant incorrectly selected Sofia, resulting in his departure with just £1,000 after exhausting all three of his lifelines.
Mr Clarkson delivered a typically forthright assessment of the performance, telling him: “I think that the basic problem is you don’t know very many things. This maybe was the wrong show for you to be on.”
The presenter’s frustration with contestants’ performances throughout the evening was evident, as he sarcastically renamed the programme during the broadcast.
“Welcome back to Who Wants To Win Nothing At All.. as it should be called,” he quipped.
The same episode witnessed an even more dramatic loss when another contestant gambled everything and saw her winnings plummet by £186,000, securing her position as the programme’s second biggest loser in its history.
The fateful moment arrived on the £500,000 question, which asked which sporting projectile had exceeded 260 miles per hour according to Guinness World Records, with options including a tennis ball, ice hockey puck, badminton shuttlecock and table tennis ball.
After her Phone-A-Friend lifeline to her father Chris yielded no assistance, Mr Clarkson cautioned her that she stood to lose £186,000 if she answered incorrectly, noting she could walk away with £250,000 instead.
The contestant, Jen, opted to press ahead and guessed ice hockey puck, but the correct answer was shuttlecock, prompting audible gasps from the studio audience.
