Jeremy Clarkson pleaded "please don't go" to Top Gear spectators as the BBC show struggled to maintain guests throughout filming, he has confessed.
The 'Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?' TV favourite, 60, revealed that he, Richard Hammond and James May resorted to bribery to persuade people to continue watching.
Lifting the lid on the behind-the-scenes action, he confessed to paying audience members to remain in the studio until that cast had finished filming.
He certainly wasn't holding back on dishing out the information as he recalled when he and his co-hosts were forced to use their own money to keep hold of their audience because "they were bored".
Speaking on the new podcast The Drive Through, Jeremy joined George Nicole, delving into his past as a co-presenter on Top Gear
Intrigued about the close bond that Jeremy shared with co-stars Richard Hammond and James May, George asked: "What was it about you three that clicked?"
Explaining the struggles from the offset, Jeremy said: "Well, one of the very fortunate things as well when we first began was very few people were watching.
"Not just in the studio, we were having to pay, and this is out of our own pockets, we'd get a studio audience of probably, I don't know, 30 people," he admitted.
"And by the end of a recording, we probably were down to ten. They'd just leave. They were bored."
Not wanting to be shown up with an empty studio, the stars resorted to their own tactics to keep audience members until the end of filming.
The TV host continued: "And then we were having to pay out of our own pockets for them to stay.
"'Here's a tenner. Please just stay in the back of the shot, please don't go!'"
However, when viewers provided their excuses for trying to make a swift exit early, Jeremy and his co-stars would up the stakes to keep them watching.
Jeremy said he even promised additional cash at the time, as he added: "'50 quid. Please don't go.'
"We were battling and nobody was watching on television either, really, in the first couple of years."
The BBC favourite, finally came to a halt in 2015 after Jeremy, Richard and James all left the show.