UK press watchdog reveals column with 'most' complaints ever

The former ‘Top Gear’ host declared that he hates Prince Harry’s wife “on a cellular level”

A column by British commentator Jeremy Clarkson, in which he professed his hatred for Meghan Markle, has generated a record 17,500 complaints to Britain’s Independent Press Standards Organization. Clarkson, who argued that Markle should be “paraded naked” through the streets of the UK, has since apologized.

“I hate her,” Clarkson wrote in the Sun on Friday. “Not like I hate Nicola Sturgeon or Rose West. I hate her on a cellular level.”

“At night, I’m unable to sleep as I lie there, grinding my teeth and dreaming of the day when she is made to parade naked through the streets of every town in Britain while the crowds chant, ‘Shame!’ and throw lumps of excrement at her.”

Clarkson accused the American actress of turning her husband, Prince Harry, into a “warrior of woke,” and called on Harry to tell “the truth” about his wife and “the spotlight of fame she craves so desperately” in his upcoming autobiography.

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By Tuesday, the article had triggered more than 17,500 complaints to the Independent Press Standards Organization, the regulatory body told Reuters. The total number of complaints made to Ipso in 2021 was 14,355, the BBC reported. 

As lawmakers, celebrities, and Clarkson’s own daughter condemned the column, the contrarian columnist admitted on Monday that he’d “rather put my foot in it.”

Describing the image of a naked Markle being paraded through the streets as “a clumsy reference to a scene in Game of Thrones,” Clarkson said that he was “horrified to have caused so much hurt,” and promised to be “more careful in future.”

The Sun removed Clarkson’s article from its website on Monday evening.

Prince Harry married Markle in 2018, and the pair stepped down from their royal duties two years later. Markle has since branched into podcasting, TV production, and liberal political activism. In a Netflix documentary series that concluded last week, she claimed that her harsh treatment by the British media left her feeling suicidal.

Clarkson wrote in his column that the series should have been called “A Woman, Talking Bollocks.”