More than 13,000 people have signed a petition asking ITV not to drop Jeremy Clarkson from Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? over the Meghan Markle row.
The TV star, 62, got himself into a pickle after penning a column in The Sun saying he didn’t like Meghan and that he dreamed of a day where she had to “parade naked through the streets of every town in Britain while the crowds chant ‘Shame!’ and throw lumps of excrement at her”.
He has since held up his hands, apologising to Meghan and Harry and posting a lengthy message on Instagram saying his words were “disgraceful” and that it was a “mea culpa with bells on”.
READ MORE: Richard Hammond’s daughter worried they couldn’t afford KFC amid Clarkson axe
But he admitted that ITV and Amazon, who are behind his TV shows, were “incandescent” about the whole thing.
(Image: Getty Images)
A petition to stop the star being cancelled was started on Change.org in the wake of the controversy and it is gathering pace, with 13,500 signatures so far.
Entitled “To the CEO of ITV: Don’t Cancel Jeremy Clarkson”, the petition is addressed to ITV boss Carolyn McCall and says: “Please don’t fire Jeremy Clarkson as host of Who Wants to be a Millionaire? as a result of what he wrote about the Duchess of Sussex in the Sun newspaper in December.”
It says that the negative reaction to the star’s column has been “completely disproportionate”.
(Image: Stellify Media)
The petition also pointed out also noted that the Grand Tour presenter had asked for the column to be taken down (which it has been) and that he had said sorry to the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.
“If people make mistakes and then apologise for them, we should give them the benefit of the doubt, not seek to destroy their livelihoods and turn them into social pariahs,” the petition said.
(Image: Getty Images)
“After all, we believe in the possibility of redemption for even the most hardened criminals; why can’t we extend the same charity to people whose only crime is to have said something offensive?”
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Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
