America clearly doesn’t have the market cornered on filthy rich guys in the public eye muttering some pretty unbelievable racist slurs.
The ink is barely dry on Donald Sterling’s lifetime NBA ban, and now it’s the turn of Britain’s Jeremy Clarkson to draw fire, according to a report from the Daily Mirror.
Clarkson, one of the world’s most-watched TV celebrities, was caught using the n-word during the filming of Top Gear. He was reciting a racist version of a children’s rhyme: “Eeny, meeny, miny, moe … (in a mumble) catch a n**** by his toe.”
Wow. Not sure Sterling could top that, even in his most loose-lipped moments. The bit was edited out, and the cut version aired last year, the Mirror reported.
Like Sterling, Clarkson has courted controversy before. He was once accused of using the term “slope” when filming in Thailand. Last week, Twitter called him out for naming his dog Didier Dogba, after the Ivory Coast footballer Didier Drogba.
And it’s not always because of something rooted in racism: His big mouth has drawn flack for calling Prime Minister Gordon Brown a “one-eyed Scottish idiot,” and he once gave a Nazi salute while presenting a Top Gear piece on Germany’s BMW. Those are just a few. Read more about his top 10 most outspoken moments.
Obviously, if Clarkson owned an NBA team (and he probably could afford a piece of one, considering the reported $20 million-plus he earned last year), he’d surely get nuked from the sport like Sterling. But will he get fired from his plush gig?
“Clarkson has to be sacked,” one lawyer told the Mirror. “No matter how much money he makes for the BBC. Use of that word is not acceptable.”
– Shawn Langlois
– Follow @slangwise on Twitter
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