Freddie Flintoff tells how Top Gear crash left him battling anxiety, nightmares and flashbacks – and ‘crying every two minutes’: Cricket legend speaks for the first time about how he cheated death, saying even now he’s not ‘better’, but ‘different’

Andrew ‘Freddie’ Flintoff has revealed he is struggling with ‘anxiety’, ‘nightmares’ and ‘flashbacks’ following his Top Gear crash, admitting he ‘shouldn’t really be here’.

The 46-year-old former England cricketer has spoken for the first time about the devastating impact the car crash has had on his life in a new BBC TV series.

He admitted he had narrowly avoided death in the incident and said he would have to live with the consequences of the crash for the rest of his life, saying he was now “different” from who he was.

A piece of footage taken shortly after the incident shows the shocking injuries he sustained. Lying on a bed, with visible wounds on his face, he admits he has to stop ‘crying every two minutes’.

Flintoff speaks candidly about the mental battle he has faced since the accident in new BBC documentary series Freddie Flintoff’s Field of Dreams On Tour, in which he leads a group of youngsters on a cricket tour to India.

He was driving a car with an open roof when the car overturned at Dunsfold Park Aerodrome in Surrey in December 2022 while filming Top Gear.

The crash eventually led to the BBC deciding that the motoring show would not return for the “foreseeable future.” Flintoff disappeared from the public eye for months after the incident as he attempted to recover.

In footage taken several months after the accident, he admits that he has ‘hardly’ left the house since the crash.

He tells the show: ‘I struggle with anxiety, I have nightmares, I have flashbacks. It’s so hard to deal with it. But I think if I don’t do something, I’ll never do anything. I have to keep doing it.’

The first episode of the new four-part series, which was two years in the making following the accident, also features footage of Flintoff speaking less than two weeks after the crash.

He tells the camera: ‘A week and a half after my accident. I really shouldn’t be here with what happened.

“It’s going to be a long road back and I’m just getting started and I’m already struggling and I need help. I really do.”

He added: ‘I’m not the best at asking for it. I need to stop crying every two minutes. I’m looking forward to seeing the boys and being with them. I really am.’

Flintoff tells the program: “You have to look at it positively: I’m still here. I have another chance and I’m going to try. I see that as what it is – a second try.”

When one of the young cricketers on tour with him asks him if he is 100 per cent now, he replies: ‘Not really. I don’t know if I will be again, to be honest. I am better than I was.’

He adds, “I don’t know what’s better. I am who I am now. I’m different than I was. It’s something I’ll probably have to deal with for the rest of my life. So… better? No, different.”

Flintoff reportedly reached a £9 million settlement with the BBC over the accident last year, paid for by the broadcaster’s commercial arm. The broadcaster had apologised for his injuries in March 2023.

In the new series, which sees him take a group of youngsters on a cricket tour to India, he admits he may need to ‘get away for a bit’ during his trip and ‘go to his room and have a cry’.

In a segment of the programme, filmed seven months after the accident, it is revealed that he has undergone a number of operations. But the programme explains that apart from hospital appointments, Flintoff has rarely left the house.

He tells the show: “I thought I could just shake it off. I wanted to shake it off and say ‘I’m fine,’ but I’m not. It’s a lot harder than I thought. As much as I wanted to get out there and do things, I just couldn’t.”

In the programme, the star tells his friend and former Lancashire team-mate Kyle Hogg how the thought of taking the youngsters on a cricket trip has kept him going during tough times.

He tells him, ‘I think about it all the time and I think about going and how good it would be.

“I rewind and think, ‘Well, am I…?’ I barely leave the house. I have to get on a plane, I’m going away for two and a half weeks.

“But some of those guys have had a hard life. You have to try to put it into perspective. And I feel guilty that I can’t.

‘I don’t want to sit here and feel sorry for myself and I don’t want to feel sorry for myself. But it’s going to be sitting here for seven months, really, and then going to India for two and a half weeks.

‘Wherever I go now, I have a full face mask and glasses on. I can’t do that.’

Speaking about the programme, the cricketer said that the eventual trip to India with the group of youngsters had been a positive experience.

He told reporters: “I think I’ve found a sense of confidence again, which has been a bit lacking lately.”

Flintoff added: ‘I always wanted to get back into it, I shouldn’t really say this in this room, but I fell into a TV trap and did TV, this, that and the other.

‘Now, looking ahead, I would of course like to do more coaching, I don’t know in what entity or where. I am quite open to it and then also a little bit of TV, keep it up.’

The first series of Freddie Flintoff’s Field of Dreams, which saw him search for “untapped cricket talent in his hometown of Preston”, attracted 3.3 million viewers in its first 30 days of broadcast in 2022.

Freddie Flintoff’s Field of Dreams On Tour airs on BBC1 at 9pm on August 13 and is also available on iPlayer.