Clarkson's ex: 'Jeremy was a lazy, opinionated slob'

Top Gear host Jeremy Clarkson - scruffy and opinionated, according to his first wife. Photo / Supplied

Glamorous entrepreneur Alex Hall likes to describe herself as the wife who was 'airbrushed' out of Jeremy Clarkson's life.

There is no mention of her in the outspoken Top Gear star's Who's Who entry; not even a paragraph devoted to their brief 1989 marriage in his autobiography.

In interviews, there is barely a mention of Wife Number One; only effusive praise for his second wife and manager Francie, mother to their three children.

One can only ask: Why?

Even though it was Alex who left Clarkson - long before he became a global celebrity - because, she told friends, he was a "lazy and opinionated slob' who smoked heavily and "smelt of an ashtray', his growing fame has seemingly cast a long shadow over her life ever since.

"I have been haunted by his fame for the past 20 years,' she told friends. "It is not easy when your ex suddenly becomes famous and is in the papers all the time. I am constantly reminded of him.'

She hinted that she regretted leaving Clarkson for one of his friends, and spoke of the difficulties to her second marriage caused by Clarkson's fame and popularity. She spoke of an enduring friendship with her famous ex.

Was this what Jeremy Clarkson was so worried about?

It would certainly seem so. For we can now report that Alex Hall is claiming that far from divorce spelling the end of their relationship, it continued after Clarkson's marriage to Francie. He denies the claims.

Already dogged by rumours of infidelity, and then to be accused of conducting an affair with Wife Number One behind the back of Wife Number Two, it is perhaps not surprising that Clarkson fled to the High Court to suppress the claims with a super-injunction.

It is perhaps no surprise either that Alex Hall might wish to tell her own life story, staking her rightful place in the colourful Jeremy Clarkson saga which he has - until yesterday - sought to suppress. Indeed, he reportedly produced evidence accusing her of trying to blackmail him when she told him of her plans by telephone.

The super-injunction slapped on Alex last year meant she could go to jail just for talking about her relationship with Clarkson, despite the fact that she insisted hers was no "kiss and tell', but a cathartic exercise.

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So who is Alex Hall, the first wife who effectively became a non-person after she walked out of Clarkson's life? Who is this shadowy woman whose voice was silenced when she tried to drift back into Clarkson's starry orbit and claim her place in his turbulent personal history?

Convent-educated Alexandra James was 17 when she met Doncaster-born Clarkson; the public-school-educated son of a teacher and travelling salesman. He was three years her senior and although he was already opinionated and outspoken, Alex never imagined her mop-headed boyfriend might one day become famous.

At just 19, Alex first revealed her entrepreneurial spirit when she set up her own company offering flexible secretarial services, which boasted three offices.

Sharing a one-bedroom flat, she and Jeremy married seven years after they first met. It seems she did not consider him too much of a catch.

Alex complained to friends that, apart from constantly stinking of cigarettes, he always wanted to be the centre of attention and when he was about, no one could get a word in edgeways.

Even back then, she has told friends, he was "too big for his boots' and didn't care much who he upset. His presence was all-dominating. But intellectually he was very fast on his feet and woe betide anyone who couldn't keep up.

They had been married for less than two years when Alex claims she left Jeremy Clarkson for one of his friends, concluding that their relationship had become more like that of "brother and sister' than husband and wife.

Clarkson, who had done four shows for Top Gear when Alex left him, was - according to his ex-wife - distraught. She claims he cut up all her clothes and lost five stone in weight.

Alex went on to marry Stephen Hall, with whom she later had two children. The year was 1993; the same year that Jeremy Clarkson married Francie, his second wife; the woman he credits with shaping his fledgling TV career into what it is today.

In interviews, Clarkson has spoken of how it was high-flying businesswoman Francie who was the driving force in their relationship. "Francie was keeping me,' Clarkson has said of their early years. "We were living in her flat and I was up to my ears in debt. I didn't tell her how bad my finances were or how I was so hideously overdrawn.'

Alex claims it is she who introduced Francie to Clarkson. The two women were apparently friends and Francie is believed to have attended the couple's wedding. Consumed with guilt over leaving Jeremy, she has told some friends she was instrumental in getting them together.

Furthermore, Alex has suggested privately that she believes it was Jeremy's heartbreak over losing her that was the real force behind his later success, shaking up his life and giving him extra drive.

She told another friend that she was the only person who had "ever broken his heart'. With the passage of time, and a second failed marriage under her belt, she can't help wonder what might have been if she had stuck with Jeremy.

Alex sold her secretarial company when she became a mother, at the age of 27.

When she later separated from her second husband in 2001, she worked as a barmaid to help support her two children before launching her own company The Big O - selling packaged premium olives to bars.

Alex claims that she and Jeremy have remained friends over the years, but that her friendship with Francie has petered out. Alex has told confidantes that she feels Francie might feel threatened by her status as Wife Number One.

Certainly, long-suffering Francie had more than just a few reasons to look grim in April when the family's holiday to a luxury tropical resort descended into chilly silences, after Clarkson was accused of having an affair with a younger woman.

The Clarksons had just arrived in Barbados when the story broke that the Top Gear presenter was allegedly having an affair with Phillipa Sage, a 42-year-old events organiser who has been among the entourage of Clarkson's International Top Gear Live show.

What people didn't know, however, was that while Francie was having to deal with claims that Miss Sage spent nights with Clarkson as he travelled around Australia, South Africa and Norway, the pair sharing glasses of white wine together snuggled up under a blanket, she was also dealing with the controversy over the injunction her husband was using to silence his first wife.

This was not the first time Clarkson had been in trouble either. Back in 2002, a red-top tabloid reported that the presenter had been seen passionately kissing television producer Elaine Bedell in a car and the pair were photographed cuddling in a doorway.

So, knowing that Wife Number One was keen to write her life story - possibly warts and all - must have been a further weight on Francie's shoulders. One, she could not breathe a word about because of the super-injunction.

On their return to Britain, Clarkson moved into a London flat - although Francie insisted they had not split up, and that he would be returning to the family home in the Cotswolds.

And all the while, Alex Hall had to remain silent, alone with her thoughts on her ex-husband Jeremy Clarkson and quietly fuming at the seeming injustice of it all.

With the super-injunction lifted, the first Mrs Jeremy Clarkson has her voice back. She is said to be considering writing a book. But what exactly does she intend to say and what on Earth will the second Mrs Clarkson make of it all?

Last night Clarkson laughed at suggestions that he cut up Alex's clothes and lost five stone after she left him.

He said: "I beg of you, please print all those things. I so want my friends to read that because they do need cheering up.'

- DAILY MAIL

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