Jeremy Clarkson told he's facing 'agonising death' if he doesn't give up habit

05 August 2023 , 13:45

942     0

Jeremy Clarkson told he's facing 'agonising death' if he doesn't give up habit

Jeremy Clarkson has been told he risks an 'agonising and premature' death if he doesn't quit his 'dangerous' habit.

The Clarkson's Farm star, 63, used to smoke 40 cigarettes a day, but has now switched to nicotine gum. However, according to the father-of-three's GP, the switch has caused a 'worrying rise' in the presenter's blood pressure with his health is still in jeopardy.

Opening up about his doctor's concern, Jeremy said: “For most of my adult life, stern-faced doctors warned me that if I didn’t give up smoking, I would suffer from an agonising and premature death. So six years ago I bit the bullet and replaced my 40-a-day habit with sheet after sheet of full-strength nicotine gum.

“And this week a doctor said it’s causing a worrying rise in my blood pressure and that if I don’t pack it in soon, I will suffer from an agonising and premature death,” he told The Sun.

Jeremy Clarkson has been told he risks an 'agonising and premature' death if he doesn't quit his 'dangerous' habit (Eleanor Hoad/REX/Shutterstock)

The NHS explains that nicotene gum is not like normal gum, advising users to chew a 2 or 4mg piece for a few minutes until the taste is strong and the gum is soft. It also warns not to chew the gum continuously, saying it should be spat out after 30 minutes.

Jeremy Clarkson faces Meghan backlash as 3 female stars won't go on Millionaire

Jeremy joked in his column three years ago that cigarette sales in Britain had plummeted because the "world's heaviest smoker" quit. The former Top Gear host quit the fags after a bout of near-fatal pneumonia made him go cold turkey while he was hospitalised back in 2017.

After falling seriously ill while on holiday in Mallorca, he realised that something had to change. "I was told, by everyone, that I had to stop. Immediately," Jeremy wrote in a column for The Sunday Times at the time.

He added: "I had no choice at the time because the blood poisoning was so bad and I was so racked with the resultant rigors that I couldn’t work a cigarette lighter."

Jeremy, who smoked for 40 years, revealed a doctor told him: “A healthy person’s CRP should be five - yours is 337. If you don’t do as I say, you will die.” Levels of C-Reactive Protein (CRP), a substance produced by the liver, which increases when the body is inflamed, were dangerously high.

In his Sunday Times column, the Amazon Prime star opened up about his stint in hospital, saying he desperately missed the outside stimulation of the outside world. “The boredom was so bad I thought often about killing myself," Jeremy mused. "My right lung was more than half full of mucus. I was running on hell of a fever. I had almost no breath at all, and even less energy, but all I could think was, ‘I am dying of boredom here - literally dying.”

Victoria Johns