Jeremy Clarkson’s new motoring show is at risk of being sued.
The 56-year-old presenter is on a mission to relaunch his career after he was dropped from ‘Top Gear’ 17 months ago but it seems his former employers are on a mission to stop him having any success as they’ve threatened to take legal action if his new show ‘The Grand Tour’ is similar to the car programme.
Andy Wilman, the producer of ‘The Grand Tour’, told the Daily Telegraph newspaper that lawyers for the new Amazon show had warned the presenters that the BBC would sue if they incorporated any elements that were too similar to ‘Top Gear’.
He told the publication: "They got funnier and funnier. We went to Namibia to make a big film. The lawyers got out a film we had done [for ‘Top Gear’] in Botswana. The lawyers go through everything and they said, ‘There’s a scene in [‘Top Gear’] where you’re in the middle of the Okavango and you go, "This scenery is beautiful", so watch that you don’t do that.’
"So we were in the desert in Namibia and we had to go, ‘for legal reasons, this scenery is sh*t.’ "
And that’s not the only restriction that has been slapped down as the producers have been forced to come up with a different name for their news section on the programme.
He explained: "We can’t call it ‘the news’."
Mr Wilman also said the filming for the new show is almost complete and he hopes it will hit screens later this year.
Jeremy was dramatically sacked from ‘Top Gear’ in March last year after he punched a producer during a row over steak.
His fellow co-hosts James May and Richard Hammond decided to quit the show after their friend Jeremy was dropped and are now presenting ‘The Grand Tour’ alongside him.
Jeremy Clarkson’s new show legal woes
