Freddie Flintoff's crash horror pictures revealed amid fears 'his face had been ripped off' - warning graphic content
25 April 2025, 09:18
WARNING: Contains distressing images
Further details surrounding Andrew 'Freddie' Flintoff's high-speed Top Gear crash have been released - with graphic images revealing the shocking extent of the star's injuries.
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The 47-year-old opens up about the accident as part of a new Disney+ documentary, which includes graphic photos of his wounds and commentary from an oral and maxillofacial surgeon who witnessed his injuries.
Flintoff suffered lacerations to his nose, cheek, chin and lips when he was dragged across 150ft, face down, at Dunsfold Aerodrome in Surrey in December 2022.
He was taken to St George's Hospital after the three-wheeled Morgan supercar overturned and trapped Freddie underneath.
The large cut across his face required surgeons to give him a skin graft.
His front teeth also had to be replaced after the incident.
Freddie revealed that he had to have his face "soldered" together with plasma and repeated steroid injections straight into his facial scars.
At one stage, he said: "After the accident I didn't think I had it in me to get through. This sounds awful ... part of me wishes I'd been killed. Part of me thinks, I wish I'd died.
"I didn't want to kill myself ... I wouldn't mistake the two things. I was not wishing, I was just thinking, 'this would have been so much easier'.
"Now I try to take the attitude that the sun will come up tomorrow and my kids will still give me a hug. I'm probably in a better place now."
In the documentary, he said: "But it'll never give me what I had back.
"I wasn't happy with it then but now I realise it wasn't too bad, was it?
"You just want people to be honest half the time — to say yeah, it is a f***ing mess, isn't it?"
He continued: "I have moments where I forget, I'm just living, and it's so nice.
"And then you just get a stark reminder, I get a feeling on my face because it's all tight and it's different, I've got no teeth, or something will fall out of my mouth when I'm eating.
"Or I just look in the mirror and it all comes back.
"You say your face is your identity, but how many times do we hear, like, people say it's what's inside that counts, it's not how you look ... b******s! You know what I mean?"
Freddie said he made the choice to his head toward the tarmac in the crash to prevent him from breaking his neck.
Reflecting on his recovery, the former England cricket captain said his then three-and-a-half-year-old son Preston "wouldn't come near me".
"I think it frightened him, my face, it frightened me. That was heartbreaking," he says in the film.
"I've got PTSD and I get anxious, for periods of time, I just find myself crying for no particular reason."
Flintoff also said that he relives the crash every night when he goes to bed and described the experience as a "vivid" movie.
"Even the memories of it are real, to the point where now I'm talking about it and I'm getting a bit jittery and I can feel the pain on the side of my face", he said. "I can feel like a phantom pain. It's like a bit of a curse, really."
Former Top Gear presenter Flintoff was taken to hospital after he was hurt while filming the BBC motoring show at its test track.
Recalling the accident, he says: "I thought I was dead because I was conscious but I couldn't see anything. I was thinking 'is that it?'".
He added: "My biggest fear was, I didn't think I had a face. I thought my face had come off. I was frightened to death."
The BBC "rested" Top Gear for the foreseeable future in 2023 after reaching a financial settlement with Flintoff, an agreement reportedly worth around £9million.
In the documentary Flintoff appears resentful about the entertainment culture he was involved in, likening it to his own injury-ravaged playing career.
"Everybody wants more. Everybody want to dig that bit deeper," he says.
Flintoff also speaks about his relationship with alcohol and experience with bulimia in the 90-minute documentary.
Comedian Jack Whitehall and actor and TV presenter James Corden, who appeared alongside him on A League Of Their Own, feature in the film, with Whitehall admitting that he was bulimic when he started his television career.
Speaking ahead of the documentary's premiere, Flintoff said that he been asked to do autobiographical-style pieces before "and always found it a bit embarrassing."
"The nice thing I suppose from a cricket sense is looking back on it, on a cricket career, which I don't tend to do to be honest, I tend to look forward," he said.
He added: "For me, I think people watch it and make their own minds up about me.
"I'm not trying to influence that. I've made it. It's gonna be out there, and it's up to people to decide. I'm sure there'll be some opinions."
Referencing the crash, he said: "It took a while, it's been hard. It's still a work in progress. I'm different but I'm all right."
Speaking about the future, he added: "I'm comfortable in what I'm doing now. I really enjoy it. You know, I do the odd TV job but I'm happy".
Flintoff led the Northern Superchargers in the most recent edition of The Hundred and in December 2024 he presented a festive version of darts-themed game show Bullseye on ITV.
Flintoff premiered exclusively on Disney+ in the UK and Ireland on Friday April 25.
