He underwent life-saving heart surgery after discovering severe coronary blockages during a hospital visit. Photo / Getty Images
The former Top Gear presenter, 66, became very “poorly” in October 2024 and underwent life-saving heart surgery to have two stents fitted and he previously admitted he “had no idea” he had come close to death as he was so busy filming the latest series of Clarkson’s Farm and opening his pub The Farmer’s Dog.
Asked if he realised he was at death’s door, he told the Sun newspaper: “I had no idea, no idea at all. I just thought, ‘Well, I am working very hard’.
“But it was very tricky. The rest [of the series] is Oh, here he is farming and Kaleb and Charlie and Gerald and Lisa – all the usual suspects.
“Then suddenly, in the last two programmes, it just goes off like a bomb’. You can see me becoming more and more ill as the days go on, because I just lose my sense of humour, lose my ability to stay calm.
“I get in a proper old panic. I didn’t know at the time. I knew I wasn’t being me. I was trying to get the pub open for the August Bank Holiday weekend and, at the same time, doing the harvest on the farm. And it’s very well documented I ended up in hospital with a heart problem.”