Top Gear’s Richard Hammond addresses reunion reports and says he’s not ‘quitting his mates’
Top Gear’s Richard Hammond addresses reunion reports and says he’s not ‘quitting his mates’
Richard Hammond has said he will not be quitting his mates following the Top Gear ‘fracas’.
The TV star took to Twitter to address rumours that he had quit the BBC show after Jeremy Clarkson was sacked for hitting a producer.
He wrote: “To be clear amidst all this talk of us ‘quitting’ or not: there’s nothing for me to ‘quit’. Not about to quit my mates anyway.”
The tweet suggests the trio are planning future projects together – that will not be Top Gear.
It comes after he was picture with his Top Gear co-stars James May and Jeremy yesterday.
The co-stars are believed to have had a meeting at Clarkson’s London flat before stepping out together.
They were later joined by Top Gear TV Producer Andy Wilman – which no doubt excited fans.
But hopes of a Top Gear reunion was quickly scrapped when Andy revealed he had quit the show.
It was first reported Andy was planning to quit the show in March after an email he sent to staff recalling fond memories of his time on the programme was made public, although he denied the rumour at the time.
In the message he wrote: “We had a lot of laughs, we had a lot of tiffs.
“We went to amazing places and we went to some s***holes.
“We nearly killed a presenter, we had to run for the border. We started off with whoever we could get in the Reasonably Priced Car and ended up with Tom Cruise.”
A spokesperson for the BBC has since confirmed that Andy has handed in his resignation.
Meanwhile, Jeremy’s co-star James May recently spoke out about his friend’s exit and insists Top Gearwithout Jeremy, 55, just “wouldn’t work”.
James, 52, thinks it’s “virtually impossible” for someone to do a good job of replacing his former co-host.
He said: “Me and (Richard) Hammond with a surrogate Jeremy is a non-starter, it just wouldn’t work … it has to be the three of us.
“I don’t think you could carry on with two people and put someone in as the new Jeremy because they are not going to be the new Jeremy. That would be short sighted and I don’t think it would work. Virtually impossible.”
But May’s agent has said the presenter is still talking to the BBC about the future of Top Gear despite earlier reports that he had ruled out a return to the show.
In a statement to the Press Association, Mr May’s agent said: “Conversations regarding the future of BBC’s Top Gear are ongoing, James continues to be involved in those conversations however no plans have been 100% confirmed.”
http://www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/top-gears-richard-hammond-addresses-5575745