Jeremy Clarkson broke the news to his farm crew on camera. In the last two episodes of Clarkson’s Farm series five, which dropped overnight on Amazon Prime, he told Kaleb Cooper and Charlie Ireland he had prostate cancer.
“I’ve got cancer,” he said. A check-up in May had led to a biopsy. “I disappeared off the other week and I had a biopsy and it is cancer, and it’s aggressive.” Cooper looked visibly shaken and said he didn’t like it. Clarkson replied that he hadn’t been thrilled either.
The presenter is 66. He told his farm manager and land agent that doctors had caught the disease early, and that without the check-up this year’s harvest could well have been his last. Because it was found in time, he said, there was every hope he would be farming for many years yet.
Treatment
A tenth of his prostate was removed. Clarkson told Cooper the affected part was now dead.
The series ends with him in a hospital bed, as it began after a heart scare. Some of the treatment had “gone awry”, he said, and he expected to stay in hospital for a while. He did not know what would happen next. If treatment worked, he said, he would be back for a sixth series. If not, he would not.
Fans had been told what to expect. Clarkson posted a warning on social media that the closing episodes would be difficult viewing and a sharp break from the show’s usual cheerful tone. Production on the next series is expected to pause while he recovers, with series six not due until 2027.
Heart scare in 2024
This is his second serious health problem in under two years. In October 2024 Clarkson was taken to hospital with chest tightness and tingling in his arm. Doctors found severely blocked coronary arteries, fitted stents and told him he had narrowly avoided a heart attack.
Prostate Cancer Research welcomed his openness. It said his story draws attention to a disease affecting thousands of UK men each year, and could clear up the belief that a PSA blood test must be preceded by a rectal examination. Prostate Cancer UK says it is now the most commonly diagnosed cancer in Britain, with more than 64,000 new cases recorded in 2022.
He is not the first face on the show to go through it. Farmhand Gerald Cooper disclosed his own prostate cancer in series three and was declared cancer-free in 2024.
