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Jeremy Clarkson to be investigated by press watchdog over Meghan Markle column

Daisy Jackson Daisy Jackson - 9th February 2023

Jeremy Clarkson is now the subject of an IPSO investigation after a whopping 25,100 complaints were made about his Meghan Markle column.

The presenter penned the column last December, writing that he ‘hated’ the Duchess of Sussex ‘on a cellular level’.

His article was slammed by thousands of people online, including several famous faces, with comedian John Bishop saying it was a ‘blatant appeal to incite humiliation and violence on a woman’.

Clarkson apologised for his words, which included voicing his wish that she would be ‘paraded naked through the streets of every town in Britain while the crowds chant, ‘Shame!’ and throw lumps of excrement at her’, and said he was ‘horrified to have caused so much hurt’.

The Sun, which published the column in the first place on Friday 16 December 2022, also issued an apology and removed it from its website.

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Press regulator ISPO has now confirmed that the Clarkson column about Meghan Markle, headlined ‘One day, Harold the glove puppet will tell the truth about A Woman Talking B*****ks’, received 25,100 complaints as of midday yesterday.

It makes it the most-complained about article in IPSO’s history.

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IPSO said: “We are taking forward complaints from two groups, The Fawcett Society and The Wilde Foundation, who said they were affected by breaches of Clause 1 (Accuracy), Clause 3 (Harassment) and Clause 12 (Discrimination) in the article. You can find out more about representative group complaints here: Representative group complaints (ipso.co.uk).  

“We will make public the outcome of this investigation through our website and on our social media channels when it is concluded. 

“In total, IPSO received more than 25,100 complaints from members of the public about this article.”

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