Press watchdog are now investigating Jeremy Clarkson after a whopping 25,100 complaints were made about his Meghan Markle column.
The controversial TV presenter wrote the column December 2022, saying that he ‘hated’ the Duchess of Sussex ‘on a cellular level’.
The article was criticised by thousands of people online, including several famous faces, with comedian John Bishop saying it was a ‘blatant appeal to incite humiliation and violence on a woman’, reports The Manc.
Clarkson apologised for his words, which included voicing his wish that she would be ‘paraded naked through the streets of every town in Britain while the crowds chant, ‘Shame!’ and throw lumps of excrement at her’, and said he was ‘horrified to have caused so much hurt’.
Oh dear. I’ve rather put my foot in it. In a column I wrote about Meghan, I made a clumsy reference to a scene in Game of Thrones and this has gone down badly with a great many people. I’m horrified to have caused so much hurt and I shall be more careful in future.
— Jeremy Clarkson (@JeremyClarkson) December 19, 2022
The Sun, which published the column on Friday 16 December 2022, issued an apology and removed it from its website.
Clarkson also apologised for his words, which included voicing his wish that she would be ‘paraded naked through the streets of every town in Britain while the crowds chant, ‘Shame!’ and throw lumps of excrement at her’, and said he was ‘horrified to have caused so much hurt’.
Press regulator ISPO has now confirmed that the Clarkson column about Meghan Markle, headlined ‘One day, Harold the glove puppet will tell the truth about A Woman Talking B*****ks’, received 25,100 complaints as of midday yesterday.
It makes it the most-complained about article in IPSO’s history.
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IPSO said: “We are taking forward complaints from two groups, The Fawcett Society and The Wilde Foundation, who said they were affected by breaches of Clause 1 (Accuracy), Clause 3 (Harassment) and Clause 12 (Discrimination) in the article. You can find out more about representative group complaints here: Representative group complaints (ipso.co.uk).
“We will make public the outcome of this investigation through our website and on our social media channels when it is concluded.
“In total, IPSO received more than 25,100 complaints from members of the public about this article.”
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