Jeremy Clarkson’s staggering net worth after Clarkson’s Farm success and Grand Tour payout
Jeremy Clarkson might have made just £114 in profit from his first year at Diddly Squat Farm, but outside of growing food and crops, his overall net worth is astounding.
Although Jeremy Clarkson has struggled to profit directly from farming, his TV appearances, Amazon Prime reality show Clarkson’s Farm and mammoth payout from The Grand Tour have all boosted his bank balance. Last year, it was reported that the 63-year-old personality had an estimated fortune of around £55 million.
The Top Gear star began his career with a very modest role as a motoring journalist at the Rotherham Advertiser, but his earnings have rocketed since. He landed his role as a Top Gear presenter back in 1988 and worked on it for a decade before returning in 2002, ultimately becoming the highest-paid star on the BBC.
However, in 2015 the BBC decided to part ways with Jeremy after he punched a producer. His co-star James May recalled being “annoyed” about the episode, but claimed the “huge pressure” they were under while running one of the BBC’s most major shows meant incidents were inevitable.
He told the Out To Lunch podcast: “We were the world’s biggest factual entertainment show – the biggest one in history, possibly. “At that point [in 2015] it was reckoned it had something like 350-360 million viewers.
“It’s a huge number, and there is a pressure to keep it up. Occasionally it will boil over in one way or another,” he added. Despite the hiccup, Jeremy bounced back and ended up doubling his annual television salary to an estimated £3 million when he landed a role presenting Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? on ITV.
He also received a mammoth payout after selling his 50 percent share of the production company Bedder 6, which held the rights to Top Gear.
Jeremy’s star continued to rise after he arranged an estimated £160 million deal with Amazon Prime to produce 36 episodes of The Grand Tour.
He is believed to have continued netting a £10 million annual payout from his involvement with the show.
With the huge earnings he was attracting, coupled with a busy showbiz lifestyle, retreating to a secluded Oxfordshire farm to grow food was a totally unexpected career move.
Jeremy later groaned that it was virtually impossible to make a profit from it, with his direct earnings amounting to just £114 in his first year.
Meanwhile, one of his advisers had his head in his hands when he announced he was planning to start his own beer brand.
He can earn £25,000 for a single after-dinner speech, while his television work, books and magazine columns also rake it in.
There was a hiccup when Jeremy bashed Meghan Markle in one of his columns, suggesting she should be paraded through the streets and pelted with excrement, and sparking a record 25,000 complaints to IPSO.
He apologised profusely to Meghan and Harry but for a moment it seemed as though the career he held dear might have been on the line.
However, he cunningly monetised his penchant for farming via the Amazon Prime show Clarkson’s Farm, which covers his antics on Diddly Squat Farm with younger sidekick Kaleb Cooper.
Feisty Kaleb quickly branded Jeremy a “f*****g idiot” after numerous mishaps, including Jeremy crashing his Lamborghini tractor into a ditch, but while he apparently knows little about running a farm, his income has continued to rocket.
He has since bounced back, and continues to build on his fortune of an estimated £55 million.
Meanwhile, his classic car collection alone – including a Ferrari, Mercedes, Lamborghini and McLaren – is estimated to be worth more than £500,000.