James May has slapped down the suggestion that he should feel a need to apologise simply for being “an old white man” in today’s media landscape.
The 61-year-old has forged a successful career on the small screen as one-third of the Top Gear and Grand Tour furniture alongside Jeremy Clarkson and Richard Hammond.
Earlier this year, May left long-time fans of the shows in tears when he bid farewell to the trio’s 22-year working relationship to move on to pastures new.
Over the course of their two-decade-plus-long collaboration, the three men were no strangers to controversies amid ever-changing attitudes in society, with Clarkson, in particular, often at the centre of politically incorrect rows.
And society as a whole has undergone quite the shift since the trio first graced scenes in today’s era of cancel culture, political correctness and persistent calls for financial reparations over Britain’s colonial past.
But as on-screen projects veer towards more appeasing subject matters and inclusive casting rosters, May has insisted he shouldn’t be dismissed or merely perceived as “pale, stale and male”.
James May starred in The Grand Tour with Jeremy Clarkson and Richard Hammond
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Speaking in a new interview ahead of his next on-screen project – James May and The Dull Men’s Club on Quest – the former Top Gear star reflected: “You do see people saying white men are the root of all problems, and I’m sure we have been the root of many of them.
“But I certainly don’t feel obliged to go around apologising for being an old white man, because I can operate a screw-cutting lathe and most people can’t.”
May then alluded to the need for nuance when it comes to societal debates, particularly over contentious issues.
After admitting he and Clarkson’s world views are “certainly very different”, he mused: “It’s like following people on X who you don’t agree with. People have said to me, ‘why do you follow JK Rowling?’ Because I’m interested to see what she says.
James May (right) worked alongside Hammond and Clarkson for over two decades
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“I’m not looking for the so-called echo chamber, I’m looking for the other view.
“People talk about the chemistry between people on TV but it’s a very delicate thing and almost impossible to manufacture. You can’t reduce it to bullet points.”
May also told the Telegraph he “believes in progress in the modern world” and that he “knows it’s better than the Britain of my childhood in the ’70s where everything was broken and everything smelled and nothing worked properly”.
This isn’t the first time he’s addressed the changing opinions and perceptions of middle-aged white men in the media either, opening up to co-star Hammond earlier this year.
He previously told Hammond and his daughter Izzy on their podcast Who We Are Now: “I do feel like men are getting a bit of a bad wrap recently.
“There’s a lot of talk about toxic masculinity and I know there is a lot of it around and it’s right that we confront it and address it… but it’s not all of us.
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James May won’t be apologising anytime soon for being an “old white man”
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“We seem to be straying close to a point where simply being a bloke, especially if you’re a sort of older, lower middle-class, white bloke… you’re almost immediately written off.”
Meanwhile, Clarkson has pulled no punches with his take on the modern-day issue of reparations, writing in his latest column in The Sun: “So, Barbados is demanding £5,700,000 trillion billion pounds from the UK for all the hurt and distress caused by British colonialism.
“Okay, so let’s kick the ball down the road and demand a similar sum from the Italians for invading us in AD43, and the French for then doing much the same thing in 1066.
“Oh, and let’s have a couple of trillion from the Norwegians for all that pillagey Viking nonsense, as well.
“In the meantime, I shall stop taking holidays in Barbados. Which, if my last bar bill is anything to go by, will cost them more than they stand to gain,” Clarkson concluded, leaning into his reputation of being unafraid of angering the PC brigade.
May returns to screens in his new Quest series while he’s also filming a new show for Channel 5 titled The Great Explorers.