SHAMELESS Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson’s affair with Phillipa Sage has been going on for more than a year, the Sunday Mirror can reveal.
Father-of-three Clarkson’s betrayal of loyal wife Frances with his colleague was already in full swing 14 months ago.
Clarkson, 50, and Phillipa were seen cavorting on the balcony of her hotel room in Auckland, New Zealand, in February last year.
Onlookers were astonished to see them appearing to flaunt their romance with apparent disregard for who might see them.
Then, two weeks after Clarkson and Phillipa checked out of the five-star hotel where they stayed on the BBC’s Top Gear Live tour, Clarkson even wrote about his 42-year-old lover in a newspaper motoring column.
Clarkson – whose nickname for tall Phillipa is Little Horse because of her height – gushed to readers about her good looks under the headline: “Lie back, leggy Phillipa, while I have some fun.”
Writing about being chauffeured in a Maserati sports car, Clarkson said: “There was space behind Nigel (our driver) for our green room director Phillipa, who’s so tall she’s actually measured in hands.”
Then Clarkson bragged how he and single mum Phillipa were drunk as they were driven around.
Meanwhile, devoted wife Frances – who is also Clarkson’s manager and mentor – was 11,000 miles away at their manor home in the Cotswolds.
Last week, we revealed Clarkson was cheating on Frances, 49, while overseas on this year’s lucrative Top Gear Live tour, from which she gets a cut of the profits.
Now it has emerged his romance with Phillipa was going on during last year’s tour as well – when the pair spent five nights at Auckland’s Westin Hotel from February 17.
One witness said the lovers appeared to be “totally wrapped up in each other”.
Clarkson, who has publicly condemned other men for cheating on their wives, is now in Barbados on holiday with Frances at a £2,000-a-night resort, where he has appeared distracted and ill at ease.
It is unclear how Frances, who’s nurtured Clarkson’s transformation from unknown motoring writer to celebrity, will react to finding the affair has been going on so long.
Phillipa, who claims she and Clarkson are just good friends, has been left to kick her heels at her modest terrace home in Woolmer Green, Herts.
Known as Pip, she once worked as a beautician at exclusive Hanbury Manor Hotel and Country Club in Herts.
She also worked as a masseuse for footballers from Tottenham Hotspur and Queens Park Rangers, including former England striker Les Ferdinand.
A friend said last week: “She met Les through the football connection and a lot of players went to Hanbury Manor to play golf. Gary Lineker used to go there too and Pip talked about how nice he was.
“She wasn’t common like a WAG, she was nicely spoken and very attractive. She comes from a good background and her family were well off. Away from work she liked to socialise and loved fast cars.”
As we today reveal full details of the affair, we can disclose Phillipa, who has a five-year-old son by entrepreneur Edward Taylor, is a familiar figure on the Top Gear set.
She was warmly greeted by Clarkson’s co-presenter James May when she joined up with the tour this year in Australia.
May was having breakfast but excitedly jumped up from his seat to hug her when she arrived at the luxury Palazzo Versace hotel near Brisbane.
She was then embraced by a senior colleague at Brand Events, the company which masterminds the Top Gear tour with the BBC.
Referring to Clarkson, the colleague told Phillipa: “He’s still in bed. Go and wake him up.”
Half an hour later, she, Clarkson and May walked to a waiting helicopter and flew to the Brisbane Entertainment Centre for a Top Gear Live show.
As we revealed last Sunday, Phillipa and Clarkson flew on with the tour from Australia to South Africa, where she was seen going to his hotel room after he had retired for the night. And, again unconcerned by who might see him, Clarkson fed her lettuce from her plate as they lounged by the hotel pool.
Two weeks ago, Clarkson and Phillipa were in Oslo, Norway, on the tour – where their relationship was so open that fan Pernille Olufsson assumed Phillipa was Clarkson’s wife as the pair stood having their picture taken. Pernille, 25, said: “I’m a big fan of the series and recognised Jeremy as soon as I spotted him.
“He and his lover were hugging and kissing and had their arms wrapped around one another.
“They had been drinking in the bar from about 8pm and looked quite coupley. Their arms were nearly always touching or linked, and they were giggling a lot. If it wasn’t for his age, I’d have thought they were newlyweds.”
Clarkson and Phillipa spent the night together three times in his luxurious third-floor suite at the Grand Hotel, before flying back to London.
Asked about the affair, Phillipa said last Sunday: “That’s nonsense, Jeremy and I are just friends. I have worked with him, er, them, for years.”
When told she had been seen entering Clarkson’s hotel suite in the early hours, she replied: “I often stay in colleagues’ hotel rooms, that’s not unusual. I’ve been pictured with Jeremy dozens of times while working on the show.”
At the time, she appeared unaware that, far from denying the affair, Clarkson was wisecracking to pals: “I’m surprised to find I’m the new Tiger Woods.”
It is not clear whether betrayed Frances is sharing the joke.
Read more: http://www.mirror.co.uk/celebs/news/...a-year-115875-
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