Richard Hammond reveals he’s SPLIT from wife Mindy after 28 ‘amazing years together’ – eight years after she said he’s on his ‘last chance’ following crash horror
Richard Hammond has revealed he has split from his wife Amanda, also known as Mindy, after 28 years together.
The Top Gear presenter, 55, took to X to share the news in a joint statement, saying they will ‘always be in each other’s lives’.
The couple, who married in 2002, share daughters Isabella, 24, and Willow, 22.
In a statement about X, Richard said: ‘A little update from us; this Christmas we were together as a family and this year we will still be a family, just structured a little differently.
‘Our marriage is coming to an end, but we have had 28 wonderful years together and two wonderful daughters.
“We will always be in each other’s lives and are proud of the family we have created.
Richard Hammond has revealed he has split from his wife Mindy after 28 years together
‘We will have no further comment and sincerely hope that our privacy and that of our children will be respected at this time. With love, Richard and Mindy.”
A source said The sun: ‘Richard is very angry about all this. It seems like he tried his best to rekindle the relationship but to no avail.
“There is no speculation that a third party is involved.”
In 2017, Mindly, who works as a newspaper columnist, publicly warned her husband that he will have to quit TV if he has another serious crash – after being involved in a high-speed accident in 2006.
Richard was filming for the show in Switzerland when the car he was driving crashed and overturned repeatedly before catching fire, moments after he managed to escape.
Richard suffered life-threatening head injuries and was left in a coma after a high-speed crash while filming for BBC’s Top Gear.
Mindy flew to her husband’s bedside after he fled the Swiss hill and said today, “I did say three strikes and you’re out.” You’ve had it twice’.
His daughter Isabella who stood behind the camera with younger sister Willow who told her father: ‘Don’t crash again, will you’.
Appearing together on ITV’s This Morning, she added: “He has one every ten years so I’ve marked the next one in my diary.”
Mindy said she predicted the crash after having a “funny” feeling the day before the crash.
She said: ‘I called Richard the day before, which I normally never do.
‘Then I called him on the day of the accident and he said he was doing well but had a few more runs to do.
‘Then a phone call came and he said, ‘I’d had a bit of a shunt’. I did something a bit strange, which I’ve never done before.’
Mindy was shopping for shoes with her daughters when he called her to say he had been injured.
Her husband explained that after the phone call, she “kept shopping.”
She said, ‘You have to keep doing something, keep going through it.’
Thestar required reconstructive surgery on his broken left knee after escaping the wreckage just seconds before it went up in flames on June 10.
His wife quickly told him how he was doing during the past month’s recovery at home.
While Richard put it “brilliantly,” Mindy said, “I have teenage daughters and a nine-year-old husband.”
Richard has repeatedly apologized to his wife and two daughters for causing them further trauma.
He said today that he thought he would die if his car flew off the mountain.
He said he knew it was ‘bad’, adding: when the car landed it broke the lower part of my knee.’
While in hospital, he revealed: ‘They told me I’ve lost 7mm of height. I can’t lose that.”
Holly Willoughby responded with: So are you wrong?’ and he said, ‘Yes. No, no, I can’t keep running around in circles for the rest of my life.’
When asked how co-stars Jeremy Clarkson and James May reacted, he joked: “They were crying. Apparently neither of them have slept and I’m getting a lot of calls and texts from both of them.
“They saw the contract coming off the ground and were concerned about all the legal work.”
The blow came more than a decade after Hammond’s previous horror crash in 2006, when he flipped a car traveling at 318mph while filming for Top Gear, leaving him in a coma for two weeks with life-threatening head injuries.
Hammond, who was driving the Rimac Concept One electric car up a hill when he crashed last month, previously said: “It was the very last run of the day, at the top just over the finish he went away from me and I went over the edge.”
He then charged 100 meters down a hill, narrowly avoiding crashing into a house and leaving craters in the cliffs.
He told DriveTribe: “I was very aware at that point that it was a hill climb and that I would be at the top of the hill at the end of it.
“So what followed was going down the hill very quickly.
“I was aware that I was at the top, that I was high, that the car was inevitably going to come down, and of course there was a moment of fear: ‘Oh God, I’m going to die.’
“I was also aware that the car was taking such an impact.”
He added: ‘What probably went through my head was ‘well, this is it’. I thought, ‘I’ve had it.’
Hammond said he was conscious throughout the crash, saying, “You’re aware of air, ground, air, ground, air, ground” and likened it to “being in a clothes dryer full of rocks going down a hill.”
He suffered a knee injury from the crash and said: “I remember saying I had to drag myself by my arms and not my legs because I think I broke that leg.”
The injury, however, did not alarm his daughter Isabella, who told him, “Daddy, it looks like you fell in the playground,” he said.
Hammond’s most recent incident? what made his co-stars Jeremy Clarkson and James May fear he had been murdered? came 11 years after he suffered life-threatening head injuries following a high-speed crash while filming for BBC’s Top Gear in 2006.
The presenter was in a coma for two weeks after the 458 km/h accident, but made a full recovery.