Jeremy Clarkson has stunned fans by revealing his The Grand Tour co-host Richard Hammond nearly drowned while filming an upcoming special of the motoring series in Scotland.
The controversial presenter, 61, said the scene in which the 'Hamster' was "upside down" in water after falling out of a fishing boat was so funny the whole crew raced to film it.
He quipped: "Richard Hammond falling in the sea - well going upside down again.
"Honestly my knees collapsed when it happened, I was laughing so much, that panicky laughter when you think if you don’t breathe and then you’re going to suffocate.
"Richard was saying after that 'no one was trying to help me', nobody could because we were too busy laughing."
According to Jeremy, Richard, who is no stranger to danger having cheated death twice while filming motoring stunts, forgot to pull the cord to inflate his life jacket, so was trying to "swim in his boots".
In response, the diminutive host detailed his downfall saying: "Essentially I was pulling a big platform with Jeremy on it on a little tiny fishing boat and I tied the rope to one side and long story short I gave it a little bit of a throttle and it started to rock.
"Jeremy was like ‘pull it harder’ and I gave it all the throttle and it flipped and it sank.
"If it had been a stunt it would have been two days work and stunt coordinators and it never would have been as good. It sinks in about 10 seconds."
Jeremy whipped up a social media storm as he teased fans with an exciting new trailer for the The Grand Tour special in which the Scotland 'Lochdown' episode will be broadcast on July 30.
Jezza is joined by co-hosts James May and Richard for another high-octane edition of the hit Amazon Prime show, due out at the end of this month.
“The first of my news announcements this week,” teased Jeremy, in a fun-filled 30-second post he shared with his 7.3 million Twitter followers.
And in the same post to his 3.6 million Instagram followers, the seasoned presenter got fans excited as they clambered to get a sneaky peak at what’s in store in the new show.
The video, which has the accompanying teaser “True friends….Always have your back!”, was viewed over 320,000 times on Twitter and close to 600,000 times on Instagram within two hours of Jeremy revealing his exciting news.
Unsurprisingly fans of the show have been excited about the return of the petrol-fuelled programme, which was filmed during coronavirus restrictions.
“Can’t wait for this,” enthused one happy follower.
“These three give me the feeling that everything will be alright,” offered another.
And a third gushed: “Omg this is the best news!!!”