DPA/London

Sacked Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson says he was under severe stress when he assaulted a BBC producer, after being told he probably had cancer and suffering the effects of his recent divorce and the death of his mother.
What the BBC deemed an “unprovoked physical and verbal attack” on producer Oisin Tymon last month occurred on Clarkson’s “most stressful day... in 27 years at the BBC,” he wrote in a column for the Sunday Times.
Clarkson, 55, said a doctor told him two days before the assault that “a lump on my tongue was probably cancer and that I must get it checked out immediately.”
“But I couldn’t do that,” he said. “We were in the middle of a Top Gear series. And Top Gear always came first.”
He conceded that other people under stress “manage to cope better than I did,” adding that he was later given the all-clear for cancer.
Clarkson said he felt an “enormous” sense of loss when his 12-year stint as a hugely popular but sometimes controversial Top Gear host was ended by the BBC.
“I felt sick because after I’d lost my home and my mother, I’d thrown myself even more vigorously into my job and now, idiotically, I’d managed to lose that too,” he wrote.
Police decided to take no action after investigating Clarkson’s assault on Tymon.
The presenter reportedly flew into a rage when he failed to get a late-night steak and was only offered cold cuts at a North Yorkshire hotel where the Top Gear crew stayed after filming.
More than 1mn fans had signed an online petition urging the BBC to reinstate Clarkson.
However, Clarkson said he admits there is no way back for him with Top Gear. He said: “I have lost my baby but I shall create another.
“I don’t know who the other parent will be or what the baby will look like, but I cannot sit around any more organising my photograph album.”
Clarkson said he even considered turning his back on presenting altogether in the immediate fall-out from the incident.
He told the Sunday Times: “Let’s stop being silly and pick up the pieces and start again ... I just know I’m going to do another car show.”
Clarkson pulled out of his planned appearance hosting BBC satirical show Have I Got News For You, which was due to be filmed next week, and aired a day later.
It would have marked his first BBC appearance since the fracas which led to his departure.

“I felt sick because after I’d lost my home and my mother, I’d thrown myself even more vigorously into my job and now, idiotically, I’d managed to lose that too.”