James May rose to fame when he joined Top Gear in 2003 (Image: Getty Images)
host has revealed that he was previously “fired” from multiple times before he became a staple presenter on the motoring show.
Last year, the 61-year-old presenter opened up about his struggles getting into broadcasting early on in his career. During an appearance on , the TV presenter revealed that before he made a name for himself on the rebooted series in 2002, he appeared on the original show back in 1977.
In the mid-70s, the presenter worked as a journalist for Car Magazine which he had a monthly column in. The star later landed his first TV role on the Channel 4 car series Driven, when a producer invited him in for an audition after becoming a fan on his column.
The broadcaster hosted the show alongside Mike Brewer and Jason Barlow, but he failed to resonate with the viewers and was ultimately fired from the show the following year.
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He was previously fired from the original series in 1977 (Image: BBC/Justin Leighton)
After spotting him on the motoring show, Top Gear – which was at that time filmed from the Pebble Mill studios in Birmingham – offered him a hosting slot on the original show.
Explaining how he landed the broadcasting gig, he told listeners: “I appeared on the old Top Gear back in its Pebble Mill days [in Birmingham]. Clarkson wasn’t on it then because he was having a kind of sabbatical.
“So I did a bit of that, but that really annoyed Car Magazine so they threw me out. They didn’t like that I’d appeared on the TV show that was allied to their biggest rivals which was the new Top Gear magazine.
“But then that [Top Gear] had a big shake-up and a change of leaders and they got rid of me and various other people as well, so I was unemployed again.
“Then when I returned to Top Gear, which wasn’t for seven more years, I sort of started again and went and did an audition”. Despite previously working on the original show, the broadcaster was rejected from the programme.
He went on: “I actually was rejected because I wasn’t on the original [rebooted] series, Jason Dawe did it.” It wasn’t until one year later that James May joined the cast alongside and , which thankfully became a huge success.
The trio hosted the show until it came to an end in March 2015, but the firm friends didn’t let that stop them from going on to produce more motoring shows together.
One year later, the trio launched their new Amazon Prime motoring series The Grand Tour which followed a similar format to Top Gear, including car reviews, timed laps and motoring challenges.