One of Britain's most popular television personalities is under fire for using a racial slur.
In the video, Clarkson appears to mumble the racist version of the nursery rhyme, "eeny, meeny, miney, mo," including the n-word, when trying to choose between two cars.
At first, Clarkson denied using the slur.
"I did not use the n word. Never use it. The Mirror has gone way too far this time," he tweeted Friday.
When the Mirror published the footage in question -- and "hired a firm of audio forensic experts to analyze the clip" -- Clarkson backtracked and apologized."I was mortified by this. It is a word I loathe," he said in a video posted to his Twitter account. "Please be assured I did everything in my power to not use that word, and as I'm sitting here begging your forgiveness, for the fact that obviously my efforts weren't quite good enough."
Clarkson explained that he absent-mindedly used the n-word from "the best known version of this rhyme."
Clarkson said he asked production not to use the footage in a note that read, "I didn't use the n-word here, but I've just listened through my headphones and it sounds like I did. Is there another take we could use?"
"I did everything in my power to ensure that that word did not get in the program that was transmitted," he said.
Here's Clarkson's statement:
The BBC said in a statement that the network had left Clarkson "in no doubt about how seriously we view this."
