Jeremy Clarkson has opened up about his “secret” health battle that resulted in him losing one stone.
The former Top Gear presenter revealed he underwent an operation in October to have a 5-centimetre cyst removed from his back
The 63-year-old was at a luxury wellness retreat with his girlfriend Lisa Hogan but had to cut it short due to concerns about his near tennis ball-sized cyst.
Speaking to The Sun, the Who Wants To Be A Millionaire host said: “I had a 5cm cyst, which is now not a cyst any more.”
“Lisa took me to a health farm and, well, it was so miserable there that I thought, ‘I’ve got to have this cyst taken out at some point, I may as well go now’.”
“So I checked out of the whole place and checked into hospital, because it was more fun having an operation than eating juniper berries all day long,” Jeremy quipped.
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“As I lay under the surgeon’s knife, I thought ‘this is preferable’.”
“I did actually lose a stone though — mind you, half of that was probably the cyst. But it wasn’t cancer. It was never going to be cancerous though — I wasn’t in the mood.”
Writing about his “miserable” experience at the health farm in his Sunday Times column, Jeremy detailed how he was not allowed to ingest anything bar vegetable juice.
He wrote: “Now, I’ve eaten grasshoppers and tarantulas, and I once had a seven-day egg, which had a bit of beak and an eye in it. All of those things were pretty awful. But nothing — nothing — gets close to the gut-retching dreadfulness of wheatgrass”
“It was all lost on me. I’d rather spend a week with Greta Thunberg at a kumbaya festival.”
Revealing whether he feels the health retreat was beneficial to him, he said: “No, I’m knackered all the time and the worst thing is I just cannot sleep. And then when I do nod off, I have ridiculous nightmares.”
Jeremy is now entering a new series of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire which will be his ninth since taking over from former host Chris Tarrant in 2018.
Speaking to The Sun about the show, the proud presenter said: “It’s a bloody clever show. It’s so clever, and I genuinely love it,”
“We have a few gamblers on this series, which always makes things exciting.”
“What makes this show so amazing is that the contestants are playing for such massive amounts of money.”
“I mean, £8,000 is such an enormous amount. People get their knickers in a twist on Pointless for £700, you know, so £8,000, this is massive, massive money, and then you’re asking them to gamble it to get £16,000.”
