Top Gear host admits being in ‘dark place’ after Flintoff crash as he delivers health update on co-star
Freddie Flintoff’s Top Gear co-host Chris Harris has spoken out about his fellow presenter’s horror crash almost one year on.
The cricketer-turned-TV presenter suffered broken ribs and facial injuries on the set of the BBC motoring show and only made a return to the public eye in September to reunite with the England cricket team.
Paddy McGuinness, Chris Harris and Freddie Flintoff were the latest Top Gear hosts
PA
“As I’ve said in the book and in a few interviews I’ve given, I’m so proud of the fact that ‘Team Top Gear’ kept everything quiet and we were dignified.
“There was nothing out there about what happened (and) there won’t be, there’s no mole in the organisation.
“I’m really proud of that so I hope you understand – as long as he’s healing, it’s great to see him out and about and being passionate about doing cricket.
“I’m sad I’m not doing Top Gear at the moment but that’s life. It’s the best thing for him right now,” Harris continued.
The motoring enthusiast was probed further about what impact the fallout of the crash also had on him, to which he replied: “I suddenly had nothing to do.
“I have got another business… but my day job went. And you imagine, the muscle memory of working life is really important.
“If that suddenly stops – I had eight or seven years of it – if suddenly you don’t talk to those people, you don’t see those people, then you go into a slightly dark place I think. I really missed it,” he said.
Harris is currently no longer filming new episodes of Top Gear amid reports the show has been shelved, although a spokesperson for the BBC said back in October: “A decision on the timing of future Top Gear shows will be made in due course with BBC Content.”
