‘I won’t lie – it was scary!’ Jeremy Clarkson, 60, says he fought COVID-19 over Christmas … and thought he would ‘die in a lonely plastic tent’ because of his unhealthy lifestyle
Jeremy Clarkson has revealed that he fought COVID-19 over Christmas, believing he would die from it.
The presenter, who is 60, told the world about the problem in his latest article for The Times, revealing that he started feeling sick four days before Christmas, Googled his symptoms and finally got tested for coronavirus.
‘The doctor was very clear,’ Clarkson recalls in his column. ‘I would feel under the weather for between five and 14 days and then I would be better or I would have gone to the hospital.
‘It was scary!’ Jeremy Clarkson has revealed that he fought COVID-19 over Christmas, believing he would die from it.
‘Where, being 60 and obese, and having smoked half a million cigarettes and having double pneumonia, I may have died, alone, in a lonely plastic tent.’
Describing what happened, Clarkson explained that he woke up wet with sweat, suffered a persistent dry cough and went on his own.
After receiving questions from friends about who might have given him the virus (‘perhaps someone who decided to dry a little bat on his pork), Clarkson explained that he gave himself up to bed with the new Don Winslow book and a bag of cabbages’ and wait ‘for the Grim Reaper to put his head around the door’.
‘I’m not going to lie – it was scary enough! he said.
Staying safe: Pictured is Jeremy in September 2020, filming The Grand Tour, taking COVID-19 warnings by going social and wearing a face mask
The Grand Tour guest went on to explain that he was alone in a small hut with his girlfriend Lisa Hogan, 46, and her children, and felt vague about who he was able to connect with. .
He went on: ‘With all the illnesses I received, there was always a sense that there would be healing and time cycling to the rescue, but with COVID-19 you have to lie there, alone, and know you have no cure in his way and that time is your worst enemy. ‘
Jeremy’s children – Emily, Katya and Finlo, from his marriage to his second wife Frances Cain – visited on Christmas Day for 40 minutes and shared a glass of champagne with him in the garden (under Stage 2 rules).
He recalled that no one knew how safe this was and added in the article: ‘We claim to know a lot about COVID, but what I have learned over the 10 years is days gone by: we are not.
‘We don’t know how long we are contagious. We don’t know how to deal with it. We don’t know what it will do for us. We do not know how long the antibodies last. We don’t know how easy it is to catch it twice. And of course we don’t know if any of the vaccines will work in the long run.
‘I don’t know if I’m better now. Seriously, I have no idea. ‘