James May
James May was born on 16 January 1963 in Bristol, a United Kingdom citizen who worked primarily in the English language. He was educated at Oakwood High School and Thomas Rotherham College before continuing his studies at the University of Lancaster, where he attended Pendle College. His occupations have spanned journalism, writing, broadcasting, and music, with television presenting becoming a central part of his professional life.
May joined the motoring programme Top Gear as a co-presenter in 2003, working alongside Jeremy Clarkson and Richard Hammond, a role he held until 2015. The same trio subsequently came together for The Grand Tour, on which May served as co-presenter from 2016 until 2024. In addition to his presenting work, May served as a director of the production company W. Chump & Sons.
Across his career, May has worked as a journalist, writer, broadcaster, and musician alongside his television presenting. His co-presenting role on The Grand Tour, which ran until 2024, represents his most recent notable work among the facts available, concluding a collaboration with Clarkson and Hammond that had begun with Top Gear more than two decades earlier.
Quotes by James May
It's healthy to have two car shows. Why not? The viewer gets twice as much car show to watch.
I'm in favour of the old roles being blurred. The old division at school where the boys did metalwork and woodwork and the girls did needlework and domestic science is awful, really - and I'm glad it's gone.
The Amazon lot are perfectly reasonable, level-headed people who just want to make TV programmes. I don't think they are the enemy of the BBC or the other way round. It's not a war; these things can coexist. We can have Amazon and Netflix and the BBC and BT Sport, and people can make choices. That's what modern life is all about.
There are very few things in real life on which I agree with Jeremy Clarkson, surprisingly few for people who have to make a TV show together. But that's part of what makes it work.
I've never wanted to be on television for the sake of it, I suppose because I'm not one of life's natural presenters; I'm not an actor.
Jeremy can't do anything. I've never discovered anything he can do. I mean, he can drive a car round a track pretty well, but he wouldn't be able to light a fire.
The three of us may be reunited on screen, we may go our separate ways, or we may disappear from the television altogether and each assume a place, alone, in the corner of a pub where any unsuspecting passing drinker who strays into an exclusion zone studiously avoided by the locals will be subjected to a predictable 'I used to be on TV' routine.