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• Thu Apr 17 2025

Flintoff 'didn't leave house for six months' after crash

13 hours ago Share Save Ian Aikman BBC News Share Save

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Andrew 'Freddie' Flintoff has said he did not leave the house for six months after his Top Gear crash, which left him with both physical and mental scars. The cricketer-turned-TV presenter sustained serious facial and rib injuries in a crash while filming the BBC motoring programme in 2022. Speaking about the incident on ITV's The Jonathan Ross Show, Flintoff said he had struggled with "crippling anxiety" in the wake of the crash and has suffered from flashbacks and nightmares. The interview, to be broadcast on Saturday, comes ahead of a Disney+ documentary which promises an "intimate and unprecedented look" at Flintoff's sporting career and his return to the public eye after the crash.

"Afterwards, obviously there's the physical scars that I've got. But then the mental side of it," he told Jonathan Ross. "I didn't leave the house for probably six or eight months. The only times I was leaving the house was for medical appointments and surgeries," he said. The former England all-rounder also revealed he had to have "about five or six goes at leaving the room" and "have a chat with myself in the mirror" to help overcome his anxiety before returning to the world of cricket as a coach. "I'd not shown myself without a face mask to anyone. It was like starting again." In a trailer released on Thursday for the 90-minute Disney+ documentary, Flintoff describes his "vivid" memories of the crash and says he can remember "everything about it". A still image from shortly after the incident is shown, depicting staff and crew attending a crashed vehicle at Top Gear's test track at Dunsfold Park Aerodrome in Surrey. Flintoff said filming the upcoming documentary was "quite strange" at first. "Since the accident, had the flashbacks, the nightmares and things? you're talking about it, you're talking about it quite a lot," he said. "I enjoy watching the cricket bits, wish there was more of them in it. The hardest part is seeing people talk about you." He added: "I retired so long ago, it almost seems like a different life. Like watching from the outside." Flintoff's family, Gavin & Stacey creator James Corden, and comedian Jack Whitehall also appear in the trailer for the documentary, which is streaming from 25 April.