Top Gear’s Jeremy Clarkson doesn’t see a problem with his perceived racist outbursts but his bosses are warning he is not “untouchable.
BBC director of television, Danny Cohen, told the Edinburgh International Television Festival the BBC was like a football team and no player was bigger than the team, The Telegraph reported.
“No one show or person is bigger than the BBC and that includes me. I found (the language) entirely unacceptable.”
Top Gear and Clarkson have been caught up in a number of racism rows in recent years, including calling Mexican’s fat and lazy, referring to an Asian man as a ”slope” during a Burma special and Clarkson reportedly using the n-word in previously unseen footage.
After the n-word fallout, Clarkson posted a video online “begging” people for forgiveness.
But according to Cohen, the controversial motoring show presenter still “doesn’t see a problem” with some of the language he used and thought the BBC “overreacted” to accusations of racism on the show.
He disagreed with someone at the television festival who claimed that Clarkson was “untouchable”
“I was very, very clear in public and in private that I was incredibly unhappy with his language.
“I have made that really clear. Jeremy knows that’s my position and that’s going to impact on the way the show is thought about in the future.”
A lot of people thought he had overreacted to the n-word saga, he said.
“I disagree. I don’t think it’s an over-reaction.
“He [Clarkson] disagrees too, by the way. He doesn’t see a problem with some of the language used – I do.
“I think it’s unacceptable, I’ve made that really really clear to him and we’ll go from there.”
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– Stuff
