Freddie Flintoff, whose show, Field of Dreams, airs tonight (Sunday, September 7), has previously opened up about the impact of the horror car crash that left him with both physical and mental scars.
Cricket legend Freddie, 47, was involved in a crash while filming Top Gear back in 2022. The accident saw him sustain serious facial and rib injuries.
Freddie Flintoff on horror crash
Back in December 2022, Freddie was involved in a car crash while filming Top Gear. The star was driving the car at high speed when it flipped. He was dragged face down along the track for 50 meters and sustained several broken ribs.
The injury led to Freddie being airlifted to the hospital, before undergoing multiple operations for facial injuries.
Earlier this year, a documentary about his recovery aired on Disney+. In the documentary, Freddie admitted that he sometimes wished he hadn’t survived the crash.
“It’s hard,” he said. “After the accident I didn’t think I had it in me to get through. This sounds awful but part of me wishes I had been killed and wishes I had died. I didn’t want to kill myself but I was just not wishing, but I was thinking this would’ve been so much easier.”
‘I didn’t leave the house’
In an interview on the Jonathan Ross Show before the release of the documentary, Freddie opened up on the impact the crash had on him and his mental health.
“Afterwards, obviously there’s the physical scars that I’ve got. But then the mental side of it,” he said.
“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 then confessed.
He revealed that 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. “I’d not shown myself without a face mask to anyone. It was like starting again.”
Freddie’s heartbreaking admission
Last year, in his show, Freddie Flintoff’s Field of Dreams on Tour, Freddie opened up about the impact of the crash while recovering in hospital.
“This will be a long road back and I’ve only just started. I’m stuck already. I need help, and I realise I’m not the best at asking for it. I need to stop crying every two minutes,” he said in the show.
“I’ve got to look at the positives, haven’t I? I’m still here, I’ve got another chance, I’ve got to go at it. I’m seeing that as how it is, a second go. I’m really looking forward to seeing the lads again and being around them, I really am,” he then added.
Seven months later, he opened up some more.
I’m better than I was. I don’t know what completely better is.
“I thought I could just shake it off … but it’s not been a case of that. It’s been a lot harder than I thought. As much as I’ve wanted to go out and do things, I’ve just not been able to,” he later added.
“I was full of anxiety. I had nightmares, I had flashbacks. It’s been so hard to cope with.”
‘I’m different to what I was’
When asked by one of the young boys if he was feeling “100%”, he said: “I’m not sure I ever will again, to be honest. I’m better than I was. I don’t know what completely better is. I am what I am now, I’m different to what I was, that’s something I’ll have to deal with for the rest of my life. Better, no. Different.”
He later added: “I feel like I’ve been more vulnerable than I ever have in my life in the past 12 months, so I’m reaching out to cricket I suppose again, to help me.”
Read more: Inside Paddy McGuinness and Freddie Flintoff’s Top Gear pay row as Paddy breaks silence
Freddie Flintoff’s Field of Dreams airs tonight (Sunday, September 7) at 8pm on BBC One and BBC iPlayer.
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