BBC Bosses Tried To Split Up Top Gear Trip Of Clarkson, May And Hammond For Being ‘Too White’

According to Top Gear co-creator Andy Wilman, the BBC attempted to ‘break up’ the show’s presenting trio of Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond after deeming the line-up ‘too white.’

Wilman, who worked as an executive producer on the show, describes in his new book Mr Wilman’s Motoring Adventure how BBC bosses summoned him to a meeting and suggested that he get rid of one of the main stars in favour of hiring a ‘Black or Asian presenter.’

Bosses told him that Top Gear was pulling in unprecedented numbers of young black and Asian viewers, and he claims he was then asked by an executive: ‘So, how about replacing one of your line-up with a young . . . black or Asian presenter.’

Andy replied: ‘So hang on, you’ve got young black and Asian viewers who have chosen, seemingly quite happily, to watch three white, middle-class, middle-aged men doing what they do, and in response to that, we should now break that team up — the one they enjoy watching — and give them something they’re most likely not asking for?

‘Isn’t that sort of patronising to . . . young black and Asian viewers?’

His argument seemed to work as the original trio went on to host the show until 2015, at which point Jeremy Clarkson left the show after punching producer Oisin Tymon when he was told a hotel he was staying in while filming was not providing dinner after the kitchen was closed.

Richard Hammond and James May followed him to Amazon, where the trio presented The Grand Tour from 2016 until September 2024.

Of course, one of the things that made Top Gear so great was the chemistry between the presenters, so it’s a good thing they didn’t insist on removing one of them just to meet an imaginary diversity quota that the audience did not ask for.

Even people who had little interest in cars would watch Top Gear and enjoy the show purely because of the presenters and how they bounced off each other. Imagine sacrificing that for essentially no reason at all?

A classic case of ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.’

For the time Jeremy Clarkson came under fire for telling a dyslexic lawyer to ‘learn how to spell’, click HERE. Classic Clarkson.