JEREMY CLARKSON is not the only man on Diddly Squat Farm to transform his lifestyle for the sake of his health – his TV co-star Kaleb Cooper has also joined the clean-living revolution.
On Saturday, Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? presenter Jeremy told in The Sun how his recent heart problems mean he now has to follow a “holier-than-thou” lifestyle full of “seeds and yoga”.
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Now it turns out his farming sidekick Kaleb, 26, has also slimmed down, by nearly a stone — though not for health reasons, but following a dream.
Speaking exclusively to The Sun ahead of the launch of his new book, It’s A Farming Thing, he tells me over a plate of sea bass: “I’m on a no-sugar thing, and it’s all because I had this dream.
“I did and didn’t understand the dream, but I knew I had to quit sugar.
“I went to tell Taya [his partner] and she thought I wouldn’t do it.
Read more on Kaleb Cooper
“I’m four weeks in now, and I’ve lost six kilos, which is pretty good.
“I do have the odd cheat day, but only sugars that naturally occur.”
Earlier this month Jeremy, 64, was taken by ambulance to the John Radcliffe hospital in Oxford, where doctors found one of his coronary arteries was fully blocked and another nearly blocked, meaning he had to have emergency surgery.
Now, as the broadcaster recuperates at his farm in the Oxfordshire village of Chadlington, Kaleb has told on the radio how they still speak most days, and he called Jeremy “a fighter”.
He says: “I’m at the farm every day, or we’ll text every day or I’ll go in for a cup of tea every day.
“He’s doing all right, he’s doing good.
“I was there with him when it happened and all I can say is he’s definitely a fighter, he’s a strong man.
“He went in, he had the procedure and he’s doing really good.”
Kaleb, from nearby Chipping Norton, shot to fame as a young farm worker who was then promoted to farming manager in the hit Prime Video series Clarkson’s Farm in 2021.
Audiences loved their on-screen bickering, and Kaleb has previously revealed that there is a lot more that is not shown.
He told The Sun: “I reckon they probably only show 40 per cent of the arguments that we actually have.
“But the main thing is that if we have an argument, ten minutes later we’re best friends again.
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“We’ll be like, ‘Do you want a cup of tea? Do you want to go to the pub? Do you want to go for a meal?’
“And that’s what makes a good relationship, I believe.”
Appearing in the Prime Video show was a happy accident for Kaleb, but it has propelled him into the spotlight, and during our chat, three people separately come up to say hello and have a chat.
While he loves meeting fans, he has had a couple of bizarre incidents, with one admirer getting Kaleb’s signature tattooed on his leg and several others spotting him while they were driving, and almost crashing their cars in surprise.
And one woman certainly made an effort to grab the farmer’s attention.
He says: “I was driving a tractor just outside Chippy [Chipping Norton] and I had come to a stop and this woman showed me her boobs.
“I was just 24 and everything stayed south-facing, despite what I had just seen, which showed I was maturing.
“But I got out to take some photos with some kids and she came over to ask for a photo and proudly said, ‘I showed you my boobs’.
“I did pose with her and then she pointed out her husband taking the photo.
“I think I awkwardly said something like, ‘Nice one’ to him.
“It was just bizarre.”
I’m not really a good swimmer. I’m not designed for it.
Kaleb Cooper
Now Kaleb is preparing for his wedding to Taya, who is the mother of his two children.
He says: “She wants to go to the Bahamas or somewhere like that for her dream honeymoon.
“I did try to suggest that we went to Cornwall, but she was like, ‘I’m not going to f***ing Cornwall so you can go fishing at 3am or something’.
“Taya has said she likes the idea of swimming with pigs on the beach.
“I’ve told her we could do that here with ours, but she’s not having it.
“I’m not really a good swimmer.
“I’m not designed for it — I don’t have gills.”
Honeymooning in the Bahamas would mean Kaleb’s first trip out of the UK, involving a ten-hour flight, plus a stop-off — all of which sounds hellish to the young farmer.
While he has been in a helicopter as a birthday present from Jeremy, which was shown on Clarkson’s Farm, he was not a fan of that either, lamenting: “I didn’t have a f***ing choice for that one.”
And it seems he doesn’t have a choice over his honeymoon either, if he wants to keep his wife happy.
But his main fear about going abroad is not knowing anyone.
Kaleb says: “I like Chippy because I know people and how everything works.
‘Accidents happen’
“If my car breaks down, I know who to go to, or if I need more feed, I know who does that.
“But if I go abroad, I don’t know anything.
“It scares the s*** out of me.”
While it would be his first and, probably, last trip on a plane, Kaleb still needs to sort out his all- important passport.
He jokes: “All my cows have a passport, and I don’t.
“Every cow has one from shortly after it’s born, and I don’t.
“I drove 14 hours up into Scotland to get a ferry across for my shows in Ireland.
“I thought I would hate Ireland, but I loved it.
“I felt at home.
“It’s just full of farmers.
“I got to have a half-hour chat with one guy about his hydraulic rams.
“Loved it.”
You can’t shout at kids, because they won’t understand.
Kaleb Cooper
Kaleb’s recent weight loss has probably been helped by him running around after children Oscar, three, and 16- month-old Willa.
He has branded them feral farm kids, and Oscar is certainly managing to cause chaos.
After terrorising pigs by jumping on their backs, and building up his immune system by licking fences, the toddler’s latest trick is smashing the TV.
Kaleb says: “The first time was an accident, I think.
“He was playing with Taya and hit the TV with a remote control thing and it smashed.
“Accidents happen, so we just replaced it.
“The next time, he’d been helping me in the kitchen, tenderising steak with a little hammer.
“He wandered off, and I found him in the living room.
“I kid you not, he looked at me, looked at the TV, then did it again and on his second look at the TV he smashed it.
“You can’t shout at kids, because they won’t understand, but I had another way to make him understand what he had done was bad.
‘He’s learning’
“I sat him on my lap, got out the bank app and showed him as I moved money from his account into mine to pay for a replacement.
“As I did it, he went, ‘Owe’, so he understood.
“He did it again a third time, so I did the same thing.
“He’s not done it since, but he now has no money in the account.
“He’s learning.”
It’s no surprise that Kaleb has perfected his teaching technique, as he has spent the past few years showing Jeremy how to farm.
And things are about to get more intense, now that the petrolhead Sun columnist will no longer be hosting his Amazon show, The Grand Tour.
Kaleb says: “I think he’s emotional because that show was his baby, but he’s ready to take a step back and do more on the farm.”
He even acknowledges that the pair really are friends and spend lots of time together, but he would still rather work with Jeremy’s partner Lisa Hogan.
He says: “Jeremy and I are really good friends and have the same humour, but Lisa is just much more practical and easier to work with.”
Beaming at me, he is quick to add: “I do love Jeremy though.”
- It’s A Farming Thing, by Kaleb Cooper, is out now in hardback (Quercus, £20, ebook & audio).