Jeremy Clarkson On Scary Top Gear Memory: “Very Nearly Killed James May”
Jeremy Clarkson has revealed his favourite memory with James May whilst appearing on the Performance People podcast with Clarkson’s Farm co-star Kaleb Cooper.
Host Ben Ainsley kicked off by taking the Grand Tour host back ten years to the last time they worked together which was on a Top Gear episode in New Zealand. Ainsley said:
“Jeremy, you and I, the last time we did anything in front of the cameras we were in New Zealand yeah and we had this race. You were in a Rent-A-Wreck roughly 200 miles of Outback New Zealand and we were in a 45-foot racing boat about 100 miles by sea
“You were on your own, we had James May and we won and I haven’t seen you since professionally”
Clarkson responded:
“It still remains one of the happiest days of my life because I said goodbye to James May in the morning, and he was James May you know just James May and then I don’t know how long it took maybe eight or nine hours or something of that nature and I met him on the beach, the finishing point, on the other side of New Zealand.
“I have never seen a human being transform physically as much as he transformed that day, I mean his face was swollen and tomato red covered in sand and sick and the man was exhausted, exhausted”
“And it thrilled me, it was arousing to see that he had very nearly killed James May. He still says it’s the worst day of his life, ever”
After revealing that May called Ben Ainsley HMS Misery the pair continued to reminisce about the moment. Clarkson went on to round it off by saying:
“Anyway I’ve always loved you ever since that because you were the man who made James May miserable for nine hours, even I haven’t been able to manage that”