Tinie Tempah hints Top Gear Cenotaph stunt could have been deliberate: ‘They like the controversy’

Tinie Tempah has hinted that Matt LeBlanc’s Top Gear Cenotaph stunt could have been a deliberate attempt to stoke controversy.

Tempah – who joined the BBC motoring show as a guest star while the team were filming in South Africa – said LeBlanc’s donuts around the iconic war memorial hiked up the show’s “notoriety”.

Speaking to The Sun he said: “If I’m being honest with you, I think they like the controversy.

“Maybe I’m just a bit more jaded and older now but I think Top Gear has started to become a controversial show and that is obviously what’s selling it.

“People don’t realise that just because someone has said something bad about you, that might be the nature of what your product is at the time — it’s infamous, it’s notorious, it’s bada**.

“It gives it more notoriety and people are still going to watch it.”

The controversial stunt was deemed “a little unwise [and] ill-advised” by former Top Gear star James May and the BBC issued an apology telling viewers that the “Cenotaph was at no point intended to feature in the programme”.

But David Coulthard defended the stunt saying he would have given the show the "benefit of the doubt" because it was performed by "two Americans who wouldn't be as sensitive" to the memorial’s significance.

Follow @StandardShowbiz for more entertainment news.