A record 25,000 complaints had been made to the British press regulator since his Sun column was published, while more than 60 British MPs from across the political divide had written to Clarkson’s employers, including ITV where he hosts Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, demanding an apology and “action taken”.

In his lengthy Instagram post, he said he usually read what he wrote before filing his copy, but he was home alone that day and in a hurry.

“So when I’d finished, I just pressed send. And then, when the column appeared the next day, the land mine exploded.” He said he picked up a copy of The Sun and quickly realised he had “completely messed up”.

“I knew what had happened straight away. I’d been thinking of a scene in Games Of Thrones, but I’d forgotten to mention this,” he said.

“So it looked like I was actually calling for revolting violence to rain down on Meghan’s head. I was very angry with myself because in all those controversial days on Top Gear, when I was accused of all sorts of things, it was very rarely sexism.

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In a recent interview with ITV, Harry criticised Clarkson as well as the royal family for not commenting on the matter at the time. It was reported in December that Clarkson, as well as another vocal critic of Harry and Meghan, British journalist and broadcaster Piers Morgan, had dined with Camilla, the Queen Consort, at a Christmas lunch alongside a handful of other hand-picked celebrity friends.

Morgan, a fierce rival of Clarkson who once punched him three times in the head during a long-running feud, lost his job from ITV’s breakfast television program in 2021 after he cast doubts over Meghan’s claims of racism within the royal family.

Clarkson added that he had “tried to explain” himself, but there were “calls for me to be sacked and charged with a hate crime”.

He said often when a well-known person was asked to apologise for something it was “never enough for the people who called for it in the first place” but he hoped he could “buck the trend”.

He also acknowledged that his own daughter Emily had been among his critics.

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In a statement, a spokesperson for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex said Clarkson addressed his correspondence solely to Harry.

“While a new public apology has been issued today by Mr Clarkson, what remains to be addressed is his long-standing pattern of writing articles that spread hate rhetoric, dangerous conspiracy theories and misogyny,” the spokesperson said.

“Unless each of his other pieces were also written ‘in a hurry’, as he states, it is clear that this is not an isolated incident shared in haste, but rather a series of articles shared in hate,” they added.

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