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Jeremy Clarkson has been forced to deny reports that he set light to a puppet of Donald Trump.
The former Grand Tour presenter, who is rarely far from controversy, said it was “utter horse sh*t” that he had burned an effigy of the Republican nominee on election night.
“If I was going to burn someone contemporary on our fire, it would be someone closer to home. But it was actually just Guy Fawkes,” he said in a now-deleted Instagram post.
Guy Fawkes Night is an annual celebration in the UK on November 5. It involves Brits staging firework displays and lighting bonfires with effigies of Guy Fawkes, who failed in his attempt to assassinate King James I in the so-called Gunpowder Plot of 1605.
There is little doubt, however, that Clarkson’s Guy Fawkes did resemble Trump. The puppet was dressed in a suit, was wearing a tie, and his silhouette had a thatch of hair that was not dissimilar to Trump’s famous blonde locks.
Clarkson has not exactly been glowing about Trump in the past. In 2016, he said Trump and Hillary Clinton both seemed “fairly horrid.”
Clarkson did write in 2017, however, that the president should not be compared to an “Adolf Hitler clone with nylon hair,” despite being “odd.”
Amazon Prime Video renewed Clarkson’s Farm for a fifth season this week after the documentary series has broken UK viewing records for the streaming service.