Top Gear host Chris Harris has acknowledged that following Freddie Flintoff’s horrible collision, he went into a “slightly dark place.”
In December 2022, the former cricketer was hospitalised following a terrible incident on a test track that left him ‘fortunate to be alive’.
Last month, it was reported that the 45-year-old had agreed to a seven-figure sum of £9,000,000 compensation from the BBC, with a spokesperson from BBC Studios saying: ‘BBC Studios has reached an agreement with Freddie that we believe supports his continued rehabilitation, return to work and future plans.’
Top Gear’s Chris, who has been a member of the show since 2016, has spoken about how Freddie is doing and how the tragedy has impacted his own life over a year after the accident.
The 48-year-old said on BBC Breakfast that his colleague is ‘healing’, before adding: ‘It was a serious incident. I’m not going to say any more than that.
‘As I’ve said in the book and in the few interviews I’ve given, I’m so proud of the fact that team Top Gear kept everything quiet and we were dignified.’
Chris praised the fact that ‘there is nothing out there about what happened and there won’t be’, stating that ‘there’s no mole in the organisation’, which he is ‘really, really proud of’.
‘I hope you understand, as long as he’s healing, it’s great to see him out and about being passionate about cricket,’ he said.
‘I’m sad I’m not doing Top Gear with him at the moment, but that’s life, it’s the best thing for him right now.’
Chris outlined how after the shocking crash occurred, he ‘suddenly had nothing to do’, which had a huge impact on his life.
‘I have got another business, which is an online car platform which is great. I do stuff there,’ he shared.
‘But my day job went and you can imagine your muscle memory of working life is really important, you guys have your routines, if that suddenly stops and 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.’
Separately in a new interview with The Times, Chris said that he was ‘over the moon that my friend Fred is still with us’.
‘If there is only one good thing that comes out of it, it is that there’s been dignity.
‘Fred’s been given the time to heal. It’s been a tough time. I defy anyone to not care about their friends if they get injured. I do,’ he said.
Discussing his new memoir Variable Valve Timings, the TV personality added that his ‘world has fallen apart a little bit’ since the accident, as not working can be ‘a really bad thing for someone who’s active and busy’.
BBC Breakfast airs every day from 6am on BBC One and BBC iPlayer.
