ITV drops Jeremy Clarkson's Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?

By Neil Wilkes, Editor-in-chief

Published: March 1 2023 | 14:36

Last updated: March 2 2023 | 13:00

ITV drops Jeremy Clarkson's Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?

ITV chief Dame Carolyn McCall says that the broadcaster has no plans to commission more episodes of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? with Jeremy Clarkson as host.

ITV chief executive Dame Carolyn McCall has said that the broadcaster has no plans to commission future series of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?

The world-famous quiz show was revived by the network in 2018, with Jeremy Clarkson taking over as host, although there have been calls for him to be fired following a controversial column he wrote for The Sun.

In the piece, which was published in December, Clarkson took aim at Meghan Markle, saying that he 'hated her on a cellular level', adding that he was "dreaming of the day when she is made to parade naked through the streets of every town in Britain while the crowds chant, 'Shame!' and throw lumps of excrement at her".

ITV had already commissioned a new series of Millionaire with Clarkson, which is currently being filmed, before the furore erupted, but McCall has told Variety that it will be the last.

"We have a contract. We're contracted to this [season], so we will do that," she said. "And then we have no future commitments. And we haven't made any statements about that."

She continued: "There was no dissent internally. We came out much quicker than anybody else, Amazon included. We just came out said, 'Yes, we do not endorse a single word that he said on that. And there's no place for that on ITV.'

"So we came out very quickly and just said, you know, that wasn't on ITV. But we don't endorse that in any way. And there's no place for that on ITV."

Since his column was published, Clarkson has apologised multiple times, writing on social media in January that he was sorry "all the way from the balls of my feet to the follicles on my head".