Jeremy Clarkson fans cancel Amazon subscription in response to Meghan Markle row

Staunch critics of so-called ‘cancel culture’ are this week demonstrating their dislike of people boycotting problematic individuals and businesses – by cancelling their Amazon Prime subscriptions in protest at the online retailer ‘cutting ties’ with The Grand Tour star Jeremy Clarkson.

Variety reports a press conference for a new series of Clarkson’s Farm didn’t go ahead on Tuesday, and that streaming service Prime Video’s partnership with Clarkson won’t go beyond episodes of The Grand Tour and Clarkson’s Farm that have already been commissioned – meaning the final instalments will be out sometime in 2024.

Prime Video declined to comment when approached by the outlet.

All of this comes as Clarkson continues to deal with the consequences of a column for The Sun last month, in which he wrote that he hates the Duchess of Sussex “on a cellular level” and dreams of the day she would be made to parade through Britain naked while crowds chant “shame” and throw “excrement” at her.

It’s a reference to a particularly shocking and grim scene from the fantasy series Game of Thrones – a reference Clarkson later said was “clumsy”.

The Independent Press Standards Organisation (Ipso) said it had received around 17,500 complaints over the article, Springwatch presenter Chris Packham called for Clarkson to be jailed, and even his own daughter condemned his “misogyny”.

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In an initial apology shared to Twitter in December, Clarkson wrote: “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.”

The Who Wants to Be A Millionaire? host and ex-Top Gear presenter issued a further statement on his Instagram account on Tuesday, in which he said “I really am sorry” about the article he wrote and that the post was him “putting my hands up” with a “mea culpa with bells on”.

“Usually, I read what I’ve written to someone else before filing, but I was home alone on that fateful day, and in a hurry. So when I finished, I just pressed send.

“I knew what had happened straight away. I’d been thinking of a scene in Game of Thrones, but I’d forgotten to mention this. So it looked like I was actually calling for revolting violence to rain down on Meghan’s head,” he wrote.

We’re not sure your clarifying you were referencing the HBO series would have made it any better, Jeremy.

He continued: “I’m just not sexist and I abhor violence against women. And yet I seemed to be advocating just that.

“I was mortified and so was everyone else … I therefore wrote to everyone who works with me saying how sorry I was and then on Christmas morning, I e-mailed Harry and Meghan in California to apologise to them too.

“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 apology was not accepted from the Sussexes, who via an official spokesperson replied: “Unless each of his other pieces were also written ‘in a hurry’, as he states, it is clear that this is not an isolated incident shared in haste, but rather a series of articles shared in hate.”

There's also the fact that Clarkson has liked a tweet from a Twitter user accusing him of 'caving into the woke'.

Amid reports of Amazon parting ways with Clarkson, one friend of the Sussexes – journalist Omid Scobie – tweeted “FAFO”, an initialism which stands for “f*** around and find out”.

However, not everyone is impressed with Amazon’s decision, and the hashtag #IStandWithJeremyClarkson soon started circulating online, with upset Twitter users proudly confirming they have cancelled their Prime subscriptions.

“So bye-bye, Mr Amazon Prime… Another good reason to spend my hard-earned money elsewhere,” grumbled one.

Others declared: “That’s my Amazon Prime cancelled.”

“Won’t be back unless we get our Clarkson back,” wrote a third.

Somehow, the Twitter users are yet to realise that withdrawing financial support from something or someone because you disagree with their stance on an issue is the very definition of ‘cancel culture’…

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