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He gave advance warning on social media Tuesday that he would share somber news on the final episodes of the fifth season of “Clarkson’s Farm,” the show based on the challenges of running Diddly Squat Farm in Oxfordshire. The episodes were released on Wednesday.

“Ordinarily we try to keep the show bucolic and charming, and cheerful, but two episodes which drop in the middle of the night tonight are, they’re none of those things,” he said on Instagram. “They’re a difficult watch, they’re really, really difficult.”

In one of the episodes, he breaks the news to farm manager Kaleb Cooper and consultant Charlie Ireland during harvest planning discussions saying, “I’ve got cancer.”

Clarkson, who made his name as the combative host of the BBC car show “Top Gear,” underwent a heart procedure two years ago. He said at the time in his column in The Sun tabloid that his doctor told him to replace work with playing golf.

In 2023, Clarkson’s column landed him in hot water with media regulators when he wrote about fantasizing about seeing Prince Harry’s wife, Meghan, paraded naked through the streets and pelted with feces. He apologized after the press watchdog found the column sexist.

Since taking up farming in 2019, Clarkson has become an outspoken agriculture advocate who has railed against the government’s decision to introduce inheritance tax on farmland in November 2024.

In the finale to season five, Clarkson spoke from a hospital bed, saying a surgeon removed part of his prostate and he would know his prognosis in November.

“If this is all successful, I’ll see you for season six, and if it isn’t, I won’t," he said. “Take care, everyone.”