UK TV presenter Andrew “Freddie” Flintoff has revealed that, following his car crash while filming car show Top Gear, he didn’t leave home for eight months as he struggled to come to terms with his injuries.
Flintoff, previously an England cricketing star, was left with severe facial injuries following a crash in 2022, while filming Top Gear for the BBC. He has now made a DisneyPlus documentary documenting the accident and its aftermath.
The Sun newspaper reports that Flintoff spoke to TV host Jonathan Ross for his ITV chat show, to be aired this weekend in the UK, in which he detailed the extent of his anxiety leaving his house. Flintoff said:
“The only times I was leaving the house was for medical appointments and surgeries.
“I was struggling with crippling anxiety. I had to have about five or six goes at leaving the room — had to have a chat with myself in the mirror.
“I’d not shown myself without a face mask to anyone. It was like starting again.”
Flintoff shared that he eventually travelled to his London office while wearing a bucket hat, glasses and a mask. There, a friend of his spotted him and said, “F*** me – it’s the invisible man.”
The long-running BBC show was immediately suspended following Flintoff’s accident, and has not been on air since. Flintoff earned a reported £9million in compensation for his injuries.
Since then, he has filmed a quiz show for ITV, and also a second series of Field of Dreams, which follows him coaching cricket to a group of schoolboys and taking them on tour to India.
