It’s becoming something of a marketing tactic for older men to cling to relevancy by continuously attacking Meghan Markle - first Piers Morgan, now Jeremy Clarkson. The 62-year-old broadcaster penned a vile opinion piece for The Sun last week that has gone on to receive over 6,000 official complaints for its misogynistic and hateful messaging.
What did Jeremy Clarkson say about Meghan Markle in The Sun?
In his column for The Sun, the journalist and former Top Gear presenter told readers that he hates Markle ‘not like I hate Nicola Sturgeon or Rose West’, but 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 wrote.
Clarkson’s daughter Emily has since spoken out against her father’s column, writing on Instagram ‘I want to make it clear that I stand against everything my father wrote about Meghan Markle. I remain standing in support of those that are targeted with online hatred.’ She was joined by celebrities such as Carol Vorderman, John Bishop, and Kathy Burke who all condemned Clarkson’s comments.
When Clarkson’s name started trending on Google – mostly via phrases like ‘Jeremy Clarkson Sun Meghan Markle article comments’ and ‘What did Jeremy Clarkson say about Meghan Markle?’ – the presenter has been forced to apologise.
‘Oh dear. I’ve rather put my foot in it,’ he tweeted. ‘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.’
His apology isn’t going down particularly well, with domestic abuse campaigner David Challen responding ‘There is nothing clumsy about the misogynistic intent you put in your words, Jeremy. Don't hide behind a TV show reference, you said Markle 'used some vivid bedroom promises to turn him [Harry] into a warrior of woke. Even you're daughter says this is misogyny and bullying.’
In the past two years, Clarkson has publicly attacked Meghan at least seven times.
But the incident as a whole proves exactly how hating Meghan Markle is still a steadfast way to go viral, and perhaps that’s why men like Clarkson do it.
In the past two years alone, Clarkson has publicly attacked Markle in his columns or on TV at least seven times. In March 2021, after her and Prince Harry’s Oprah interview, he dubbed her a ‘silly little cable TV actress’ and accused her of ‘simpering victimhood’ in another column for The Sun. ‘He is much revered by the young and the stupid who believe that her brand of simpering victimhood will one day bring down the monarchy, but it won’t,’ he wrote.
In October 2020, he referenced her and Prince Harry’s efforts to reduce their carbon footprint (releasing a statement about their intention to make their non-profit organisation Archewell ‘net zero by 2030’) in an article about the climate crisis that salaciously interpreted her efforts as a personal attack on anyone who drives. ‘When Meghan Markle told me to leave the car at home, I wanted to shoot a polar bear in the middle of its face,’ he wrote.
And in December this year, for his final column of the year in The Times, he wished readers a merry Christmas and wrote ‘I hope yours is happy too and that all of you (except Meghan Markle) have a great break. See you on the flip side.’
Why does Jeremy Clarkson hate Meghan Markle?
Where does this weird obsession with tearing her down come from? Unlike Piers Morgan, who appears to despise Meghan for the mere fact she was unwilling to entertain a relationship with him (but more on that here), Clarkson has no obvious link to Markle. There was no sordid past relationship, no examples of them ever working together, it doesn’t appear that Clarkson has actually ever met Meghan at all. He, like much of the other people that despise her without ever knowing her, has no real basis for his hatred at all except from what he’s heard from the now well-documented manipulative tabloid media.
Considering his well-educated, successful self is more than capable of deducing how a misogynist tabloid media can infect the brains of the many to despise a woman who has not harmed anyone, one can only assume that he sees the value in hating Meghan publicly brings personal success. That is, if personal success means remaining relevant and going viral no matter the moral cost.
Perhaps the reaction to his latest stunt – and the public decrying from his own daughter, although she of course shouldn’t be forced to answer for the misogyny of her father – will help him, and others, see that there’s still a social cost to maliciously targeting high-profile women, even if it pays financially in tabloid clicks to keep doing so.