Bill Bailey says 'oafish' Jeremy Clarkson 'got the kicking he deserved' over Meghan Markle

express.co.uk:

Jeremy Clarkson's claim that he despised Meghan Markle to the point of fantasising about "excrement being thrown at her while she was paraded naked through the streets" sparked a mammoth backlash, becoming the Independent Press Standards Organisation’s most complained about article of all time.

Comedian Bill Bailey has little sympathy, branding Jeremy's comments "clumsy" and "oafish" and declaring that he should have known the reaction his comments would cause.Talking in a new interview, the 57-year-old insisted: "[He] got the kicking he deserved."He told the Telegraph: "You might [make a comment like Jeremy's] in the pub as a clumsy, oafish sort of laugh."But you put it in print and not only does it take on another life but it gives gravitas to something that should never have had it."Bill also exclaimed that he could scarcely believe Jeremy hadn't been more "savvy"."You think, ‘Come on, you’ve got to be more savvy than that, surely you can see how that’s going to pan out’," he continued."It was misguided and ill-conceived and he got the kicking he deserved."His comments, which included a claim that he couldn't sleep at night because he despised her on a "cellular level" attracted thousands of complaints, leaving a sheepish Jeremy to ask the Sun to take his opinion piece down.They did so, but not before a string of celebrities - including his own daughter, social media influencer Emily Clarkson - had taken to social media to condemn it.Wildlife presenter Chris Packham, whose current BBC series Dogs In The Wild concludes on Wednesday, told half a million Twitter followers that he believed Jeremy should be jailed."It’s [a] hate crime, pure and simple," he wrote, adding: "If there were any sort of justice there would be.