Jeremy Clarkson Condemned for Comments About Meghan Markle

Media personality Jeremy Clarkson is under fire after penning an article for The Sun about his "hate" for Meghan Markle.

More than 6,000 complaints have been made to press regulator Ipso about Clarkson's piece, according to the BBC. The article was taken down from The Sun's website on Monday with the message: "In light of Jeremy Clarkson's tweet he has asked us to take last week's column down."

Published Friday by the U.K. outlet, the Top Gear host said in the article that he hated the Duchess of Sussex "on a cellular level."

"At night, I'm unable to sleep as I lie there, grinding my teeth and 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," he wrote, referencing the famous scene from Game of Thrones.

Clarkson also wrote that he hated Meghan more than Rose West, referencing the notorious English serial killer who — with her husband, Fred West — tortured and murdered numerous young women as well as her stepdaughter in the 1970s and 1980s.

First Minister of Scotland Nicola Sturgeon, who was also named in the article as someone that Clarkson "hates," called what the presenter said "deeply misogynist and just downright awful and horrible."

"I think what he said about Meghan Markle was deeply misogynist and just downright awful and horrible," she said, according to The Times. "My overwhelming emotion about guys like Jeremy Clarkson is pity. I mean, what is it that makes somebody so distorted by hate that they end up writing these things? I think that possibly gives an insight into Jeremy Clarkson and the kind of person he is. So maybe he just needs to take a step back from things and just think about life a bit more."

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan condemned the article via Twitter, writing: "As Jeremy Clarkson should well know - words have consequences. The words in his piece are no joke - they're dangerous and inexcusable. We are in an epidemic of violence against women and girls and men with powerful voices must do better than this."

Clarkson's daughter Emily also added to the backlash. "My views are and have always been clear when it comes to misogyny, bullying and the treatment of women by the media," she wrote on her Instagram story. "I want to make it very clear that I stand against everything that my dad wrote about Meghan Markle, and I remain standing in support of those that are targeted with online hatred."

Clarkson responded on Twitter Monday, saying he was "horrified to have caused so much hurt."

"Oh dear. I've rather put my foot in it," he wrote. "In a column I wrote about Meghan, I made a clumsy reference to a scene in Game of Thrones and this has gone down badly with a great many people. I'm horrified to have caused so much hurt and I shall be more careful in future."

A spokesperson for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex declined to comment.

Last week, Clarkson went to a Christmas lunch also attended by Queen Camilla at Michelin-starred restaurant Murano in London. The event — hosted by Ewan Venters, former head of Fortnum & Mason — also saw guests such as Maggie Smith, Judi Dench and Piers Morgan.

Clarkson's article came amid the release of Meghan and Prince Harry's Netflix docuseries, in which the couple detailed their struggles with press intrusion and social media threats.

"I think for people to really understand, you know, when you plant a seed that is so hateful, what it can grow into," the Duchess of Sussex said in an emotional moment of the show.

"Just a couple of days ago, I was going through the manual for our security team at home, and on one of the pages that I happened to flip to, it was about online monitoring," she continued. "And they're like: 'If you see a tweet like this, please report it to the head of security immediately.' And it just said: 'Meghan just needs to die. Someone needs to kill her. Maybe it should be me.' "

"And I was just like, 'Okay.' That's, like, what's actually out in the world because of people creating hate," Meghan said.

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