James May claims that his ‘wokeness’ lost him a big TV position early in his career.
The broadcaster, 60, was one of the highest-paid television personalities of the previous two decades as the host of Top Gear and later The Grand Tour, but he now claims he was fired from a Channel 4 motorsport show because he was a guy.
May co-hosted Driven with Mike Brewer and Jason Brewer for one season before being replaced by former British rally racer Penny Mallory.
‘They told me they needed to have a woman,’ May said on motoring podcast Fuelling Around.
‘They couldn’t really get rid of Mike Brewer because he had his other shows and he was very popular. They couldn’t really get rid of Jason because he was being groomed for greater things and was going to become the editor of CAR Magazine and all the rest of it.
‘The only target left was me, so I was out of the door, and that was that really.
‘This was an early bit of wokeness, they thought this programme was not quite right because they’ve got three white blokes that are all the same age.’
Wokeness, however, is a term lifted from African American English use describe ‘alerting racial prejudice and discrimination’.
May bounced back from the loss of Driven to become one of the primary hosts on Top Gear, with Jeremy Clarkson and Richard Hammond.
Their tenure on the BBC was cut short in 2015 after Clarkson assaulted a producer over a steak.
Regardless, Amazon Prime Video scooped them up to begin The Grand Tour, which follows the trio as they try out various automobiles in various locations across the world.
However, earlier this year, it was reported that The Grand Tour had been cancelled due to Clarkson’s disgusting statements about Meghan Markle, which were ultimately deemed’sexist’ by IPSO.
May, on the other hand, emphasised that any suggestions Prime Video had abandoned the gang were false.
Listen to James May’s full interview on the Fuelling Around podcast now.
Source My Celebrity Life.