Paddy McGuinness, the TV host who starred alongside Freddie Flintoff on Top Gear, has made clear his stance on the return of the motoring show.
This comes after Freddie Flintoff came out and admitted that him and McGuiness barely speak after the near-fatal crash that left Flintoff with severe facial injuries and broken ribs.
McGuiness and Flintoff hosted the revival of the show alongside motoring journalist Chris Harris.
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The trio took over for the failed attempt to revive the show featuring Chris Evans as the lead host alongside others such as Matt LeBlanc and Sabine Schmitz.
The revived version featuring Flintoff and McGuinness was the closest the BBC came to rekindling the success of Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, and James May’s iteration of the series.
Flintoff’s crash however spelled the end of the show, with the BBC confirming they would be taking an indefinite break.
The former cricket star has recently spoken out about his crash for the first time ahead of a Disney+ documentary releasing tomorrow that goes into detail about his life and the effects of the incident.
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This includes the first footage to be released since the crash took place in 2022.
If you were thinking that all this openness about the show could lead to a reunion for McGuinness and Harris on Top Gear however, it would hinge on one particular issue.
Speaking to The Sun, he said: “If we were doing Top Gear, just me and Chris without Fred, then that would be a problem. I’d be thinking to myself, ‘Bloody hell, where’s the big lad?’”
He went on to point to the ‘great chemistry’ the trio had, stating: “I know for a fact that if Fred wanted to come along on that road trip, there wouldn’t be any problems — we’d do it.
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“If the three of us ended up doing Top Gear again, we’d do it.”
Flintoff’s recent statement confirming he barely speaks to McGuinness however seems to deny that as a possibility in the near future.
Speaking ahead of the release of his new doc, Flintoff, he said: “We’ve been in contact, I saw Chris actually. We hugged each other, he got upset, I got upset. It was really nice to see him.
"And I feel bad I haven’t been more in contact with him and Paddy. I think there was some comments on Paddy a while ago saying I’ve not spoken to him, not done this, that and the other.
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"And part of it is, for myself a little bit, you know what I mean?
"I hate the word triggering but I’m worried about that. It’s also something stopped in some ways I suppose because of what happened to me, like, their careers have been altered as well, so I feel, not guilty but I feel bad for them.”
Topics: Paddy McGuinness, Freddie Flintoff, Top Gear, BBC, TV, TV and Film
Michael Slavin