British tabloid The Sun regrets publishing "hate" article against Meghan Markle

London: Following a significant backlash, the British newspaper The Sun on Friday stated it regretted publishing a column by former Top Gear host Jeremy Clarkson about Prince Harry's wife Meghan.

Last week, Clarkson claimed to have "hated" Meghan and to have fantasised about the day "when she is made to parade naked through the streets of every town in Britain while the crowds chant, 'Shame!' and throw lumps of excrement at her" in an article for The Sun.

More than 20,000 complaints, a record number, were filed about the column to the UK Independent Press Standards Organization (Ipso), and several well-known people, including author Philip Pullman and London Mayor Sadiq Khan, criticised the piece, AFP reported.

The piece had been taken down from the newspaper's website after it was published in response to the couple's most recent Netflix docuseries, "Harry & Meghan."

"We at The Sun regret the publication of this article and we are sincerely sorry," The Sun said in a statement on its website.

It also stated that the article would be deleted from its archives.

Clarkson submitted the request to have the piece removed from The Sun's website on Monday, posting on Twitter, "a clumsy reference to a scene in Game of Thrones and this has gone down badly with a great many people".

He added: "I'm horrified to have caused so much hurt and I shall be more careful in future."

In one of the most well-known sequences from Game of Thrones, a female character performs a "walk of shame" in which she is made to go down the street naked while being pelted with trash.

"Columnists' opinions are their own, but as a publisher, we realise that with free expression comes responsibility," The Sun said.

Harry and Meghan accuse the voracious UK tabloid press in the Netflix documentary of racism, of attempting to "destroy" her, and of contributing to her miscarriage through a targeted campaign fueled by palace briefings.