Queen Camilla is 'a big fan of Clarkson's Farm' despite Jeremy's Meghan Markle row

Queen Camilla is a ‘big fan of Jeremy Clarkson’ despite the television star becoming embroiled in a row over her daughter-in-law Meghan Markle.

The Clarkson’s Farm star was criticised after he wrote a 2022 column in The Sun in which he said he “hated” the Duchess of Sussex on a “cellular level” and wanted her “paraded naked through the street” in a similar manner to a scene from Game of Thrones. It drew a record number of complaints to the press regular IPSO (the Independent Press Standards Organisation).

The column was eventually pulled and both The Sun and Clarkson issued an apology. Gender equality charity The Fawcett Society was among those who complained to Ipso, calling the article "vile and offensive".

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Now Queen Camilla’s son, Tom Parker Bowles, has revealed his mother is a fan of Clarkson’s work at Diddly Squat Farm in the Cotswolds. Tom says his mother is particularly keen on how the former Top Gear star has highlighted the importance of farming.

Writing in Saga magazine, Tom, 49 said: “Mum’s a big fan of Clarksons’ Farm, which is bringing farming back into the spotlight. It’s a tough, 24-hour, thankless job that’s often profitless. How bizarre it’s taken someone like Jeremy Clarkson to point out things must change.”

Clarkson has highlighted the struggles of farming on the hit Amazon Prime TV show, with audiences watching on as he battles the weather, tiny profit margins, and red tape at his Chipping Norton farm. It led to Tom calling the 64-year-old a “genius” during a conversation with The Times.

Tom said: “Jeremy Clarkson is a farming genius. I love Clarkson.”

When asked if he knew the presenter he replied: “Yes. He, like [King] Charles, is the same in real life.”

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And while the Queen appears to be a fan of Clarksons’ Farm, Tom doesn’t think the King is among those who have watched the show. When asked if the monarch had watched, he said: “I don’t think he has. My mother has. She loves it. She loves Jeremy. I think they’d make an interesting pairing, Jeremy and the King.”

Tom says the King was “ahead of his time” when it came to his own views on farming, discussing issues such as organic produce, seasonal ingredients, and the latest techniques over 40 years ago. It meant many, Tom says, chalked the-then prince off as “a bit woo-woo”.

Clarkson’s row with Meghan meanwhile appears to have stretched back years, with the star describing her as a “a silly little cable TV actress" in a 2021 column. After Queen Elizabeth died, and Harry attended Balmoral alone, Clarkson suggested Meghan was “being a nuisance somehow”.

It was his column in 2022 that caused the most backlash however, including from his daughter Emily who said: “I want to make it very clear that I stand against everything that my dad wrote about Meghan Markle and I remain standing in support of those that are targeted with online hatred”

Clarkson subsequently tweeted: "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.”

In January 2023, Harry addressed the issue himself. While promoting his memoir Spare he told ITV News presenter Tom Bradby: "Not only is what [Clarkson] said horrific and hurtful and cruel towards my wife, but it also encourages other people around the UK and around the world, men particularly, to go and think that it's acceptable to treat women that way."

Clarkson claimed he had personally contacted the pair on Christmas Day. "I said I was baffled by what they had been saying on TV but that the language I'd used in my column was disgraceful and that I was profoundly sorry," the presenter wrote.

The Sussexes however claimed the apology was only addressed to Harry and not Meghan. It criticised him for not addressing a "long standing pattern of writing articles that spread hate rhetoric, dangerous conspiracy theories, and misogyny".