Reason Ellen DeGeneres 'to blame' for Jeremy Clarkson's disastrous pub opening

Jeremy Clarkson's pub launch turned into a disaster on Clarkson's Farm-and now locals claim US star Ellen DeGeneres might be partly to blame. Season four of the hit Prime Video series showed the mayhem that unfolded during the August 2024 opening of Clarkson's Cotswolds pub, The Farmer's Dog. Viewers watched as the toilets and kitchen were forced to shut down, and customers were turned away in droves after the pub ran out of water just two days into business.

At the time, Jeremy's plumber suggested the issue stemmed from the nearby hamlet of Asthall. In episode eight, Jeremy said: "I was hoping the problem was something trivial, but the plumber quickly realised it was being caused by the village down the hill." The plumber then explained: "As far as I know, the water pipe comes all the way up the hill from Asthall village. When everyone in the village is turning their water supply on, showers, filling up pots and pans and kettles, it doesn't then have the oomph to push it up the hill [to the pub]."

Now a local from Asthall, who did not wish to be named, has claimed the problem may have been made worse by Ellen DeGeneres - who was refilling a massive swimming pool at her newly purchased farmhouse nearby.

"It was around the August Bank Holiday weekend [2024] that the swimming pool at Ellen's farmhouse was being refilled," the local told the Daily Mirror. "Pools of that size filled with normal mains water can take a week to nine days to fill-sometimes even longer, depending on the local mains water pressure.

"If you can imagine having all the taps on to fill the pool, that has to take a lot of water out of the system, and Asthall really is just a very small hamlet with a handful of houses."

Ellen bought the £15 million property - complete with a 56ft pool - in June 2023 after leaving her Montecito home in protest at Donald Trump's second election win.

She and her wife, Portia de Rossi, didn't move in until October, following months of renovations. The couple were later spotted at a live music night at Jeremy's pub in December.

They reportedly loved The Three Horseshoes, the only other pub in the village, so much that they had a replica of its bar built in their farmhouse. The 56ft-long, 12ft-wide pool is 6ft deep and holds an estimated 112,896 litres of water.

Locals claim it was emptied, cleaned and refilled around the same time as the pub opening. Jeremy bought the pub for £1million and rebranded it The Farmer's Dog.

He and his girlfriend, Lisa Hogan, later admitted they couldn't bring themselves to watch the final two episodes of Clarkson's Farm because the pub launch had been so stressful.