Jeremy Clarkson has clarified the truth behind his arrest in France, when he spent the night in a jail cell. The former Top Gear host was thought to be “paralytic” by French authorities who picked him up after an evening of heavy drinking at a restaurant – but there was more to the incident than first met the eye.

The incident wasn’t a recent one, however, and actually happened around 40 years ago – but Jeremy only recently confessed the ordeal to fans in a new episode of Prime Video series Clarkson’s Farm. He explained: “I once had to go to prison in France because of a slug. True story. I went to a restaurant called La Pomme d’Amour and there was a slug in my lettuce.

“The man was so apologetic. He said: ‘You can drink as much as you like on the house’. I was only 19 so I thought: ‘I will then!’ And I did. I was arrested a bit later because I was a bit wobbly. I was trying to explain to the policeman that I’d eaten a slug and the man had given me a lot of drink.

“But I couldn’t think what the French for slug was. I said: ‘Je mange un escargot sans maison.’” That literally translates to “snail without a house”, rather than the actual French for slug, which is limace.

Jeremy concluded: “They just thought: ‘This man is definitely paralytic’. I got thrown into prison because I didn’t know the French for slug.”

He later clarified on X with a tweet: “To be clear, the slug incident that got me a night in the Cannes can was exactly 40 years ago this weekend. Not last week or anything.”

It’s not Jeremy’s only brush with the law – though a 2024 incident was thankfully a lot more tongue-in-cheek. Videos began to circulate last year of the star being ‘arrested’ at his Cotswolds Diddly Squat farm after protesters hurled dirt at his car, with a group chanting: “Don’t hurt dirt!” as they campaigned for the “rights of soil”.

It all turned out to be a prank for Ant and Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway on ITV, and Jeremy replied to one fan who asked if he was really arrested by police with the simple tweet: “Pretty sure I wasn’t. It’s the kind of thing you notice.”