Clarkson Reveals Near-Heart Attack Health Scare

says doctors told him he was 'days' away from having a heart attack during his terrifying 2024 health scare. 

The presenter, 66, fell ill with excruciating chest pains in October 2024 and was rushed to hospital by ambulance, where doctors discovered one of his arteries was 'completely blocked.' 

In the newly released first episode of the fifth series of his hit Prime show Clarkson's Farm, he is seen explaining the ordeal to his co-worker Kaleb Cooper.  

He attributed his health problems to the 'stressful' pressure of opening his pub, The Farmer's Dog, just weeks earlier as he declared to his sidekick: 'I'm back and not dead. The grim reaper will have to wait. It was f***ing close, though.'

Clarkson added that he realised something was wrong when he experienced pins and needles in his arm while scrolling through his phone.

'That was just coincidental – I was scrolling on my phone. If I hadn't been doing that, I wouldn't have got pins and needles in my arm and, if I hadn't got pins and needles, I wouldn't have thought, "Hang on, I'm having heart problems", and I wouldn't have gone to hospital,' he said. 

Clarkson added that he didn't suffer a heart attack but did come close. Instead, doctors discovered he had been suffering from 'really bad coronary artery problems'.

He explained to Cooper: 'You've got three arteries that feed your heart with blood; one of them was totally blocked, one of them looked like something dangling from the roof of a cave in the Peak District, and one of them had got so clogged up it had had to form branches.'

'So my heart wasn't getting any blood.'

'I said, "How close was I to a heart attack?" and he went..."days".'

Surgeons later resolved the issue by inserting a stent - a tiny, expandable mesh tube that is placed in narrow or blocked coronary arteries to restore and aid the flow of blood. 

The former Top Gear host revealed he first felt unwell in 2024 following a swim in the Indian Ocean while on holiday.

He explained that 'it wasn’t far, maybe the length of two swimming pools. But when I finally reached the beach, there was more water in my lungs than there is in Lake Superior, and I was mostly dead.'

Clarkson returned to Britain and a 'sudden deterioration began to gather pace' with him feeling 'clammy', 'tightness in my chest', and 'pins and needles in my left arm'.

This led him to being admitted to hospital where a heart attack was ruled out after he had an electrocardiogram (ECG), blood tests and X-rays.

Following the life-saving surgery, he has been warned by doctors that he must make major changes to his lifestyle.

premieres on June 3, with episodes one to four available that day, followed by episodes five and six on June 10. The final two instalments will air on June 17. 

The star has teased the fifth series is 'the most dramatic yet'.