Entertainment
Jeremy Clarkson told to change lifestyle after heart operation
Jeremy Clarkson has said he was told to cut down on work by his doctor after undergoing a heart operation.
The 64-year-old revealed earlier this month that he was fitted with two stents – which improve blood flow to the heart – after a “sudden deterioration” in his health.
Writing in The Sun on Friday, Clarkson said he didn’t find the operation scary, but “what is scary though is what came afterwards – the advice on how I must live my life from now on”.
The former Top Gear host said “I am not allowed to have fun anymore” and that his doctor told him “a lot” of the work he does “will have to go”. Clarkson said his doctor suggested replacing it with golf.
“If I didn’t work, I’d just sit at home all day, rotting,” he said, before adding: “The worst problem though is diet”.
“To cut my alarmingly high levels of cholesterol, I need to cut out, completely, everything I like eating,” Clarkson said.
“Bacon, sausages, beef, lamb, pork, butter, chips, proper milk, Cadbury’s fruit and nut bars and the interesting bit in an egg.
“I’ve had a week now to live in the new regime and it’s horrific.”
The Who Wants To Be A Millionaire presenter said he would “carry on” working but change his diet – adding that he knew his lifestyle “wasn’t going to cause me to live to 112”.
Clarkson wrote that he “quite fancied living a bit longer” after his operation and wants to see his “grandchildren grow up”.
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Last week, the presenter wrote in The Sunday Times that he noticed he felt “clammy”, a “tightness in my chest” and “pins and needles in my left arm” while on holiday.
Clarkson said he then went to his doctor after hearing about Alex Salmond’s sudden death, before being taken to Oxford’s John Radcliffe Hospital by ambulance.
While a heart attack was ruled out, he said his doctors believed he was potentially “days away” from becoming very ill.
The star’s final Grand Tour episode aired in September, but he continues to present Amazon Prime’s Clarkson’s Farm and ITV’s Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?
He also recently opened a pub called The Farmer’s Dog in Oxfordshire, close to his home in Chipping Norton.