Richard Hammond announces shock split from wife after 28 years

Hammond, known for motoring shows Top Gear and The Grand Tour, shared a statement on his X account from him and his wife, who he married in 2002

Richard Hammond and his wife, Amanda “Mindy” Hammond, have announced their split after an “amazing 28 years together”.

Hammond, known for motoring shows Top Gear and The Grand Tour, shared a statement on his X account from him and his wife, who he married in 2002.

They said: “A little update from us; this Christmas we were together as a family and this year we will still be a family but just structured a bit differently. Our marriage is coming to end, but we’ve had an amazing 28 years together and two incredible daughters.

“We will always be in each other’s lives and are proud of the family we created. We won’t be commenting further and sincerely hope that our privacy and that of our children will be respected at this time. With Love, Richard and Mindy.”

Heartbroken fans took to the comments to respond as they wished the couple the best. One wrote: "Wishing you both all the best." While another commented: "Its no one's business but your own, as much as some would love it to be otherwise. Enjoy life."

The couple wed in 2002, but the biggest challenge they faced was the impact of devastating 2006 car crash that left him comatose in hospital for two weeks. Mindy helped nurse her husband back to health after the accident which nearly claimed his life. The jet-powered supercar he was racing at 319mph flipped and smashed during filming for BBC's Top Gear.

Miraculously he awoke from his coma, but his wife Mindy was shocked when he couldn't recognise her face. "It was disconcerting when, early after the crash, Richard looked at me from his hospital bed and said, 'You're lovely, but you're not my wife'," she told the Telegraph. "When I corrected him, he responded, 'No, you're not my wife, my wife is French'. Indeed, when he was allowed home five weeks later, it became clear that Richard's memory loss was no short-term affliction."

The couple struggled with Richard's mood swings and he became prone to depression because of his brain injury. His short-term memory was affected by the crash and he was unable to retain information for more than 10 seconds. Instead, the pair would have the same conversations over and over again as Richard would lose track and repeat the same sentence.

“It was a harrowing, horrible time,” she revealed. “The nurse had tried all these observations by prodding him and she was clearly getting nothing. And I remember saying to her ‘It’s bad, isn’t it?’ Because obviously things were going in the wrong direction, she started shouting ‘Richard, Richard’ at him. I said ‘Can I shout at him too?’

“I got really close to his face and shouted: ‘Richard, Richard, squeeze those bloody fingers. You’ve got to come back’. You are hysterical because you just know if you don’t get a response, the slide is starting. I was swearing at him. You would do anything.”

But Richard still worries about the long-term effects on his health, especially as he went through another high-speed car accident while filming for The Grand Tour in Switzerland in 2017. His horrified co-stars Jeremy Clarkson and James May were forced to stay back as the £2million supercar he was racing flipped over and burst into flames, not knowing whether their friend and colleague was trapped inside the fiery blaze.

"I can feel it now; the coldness. My knees turning to jelly," Jeremy later wrote on DriveTribe.com. "Then came news from a nearby marshal that he wasn’t [inside]. That he’d got out before the fire started. And that 'his body' – that what they said – was behind a screen at the bottom of the hill.

"I couldn’t see Hammond. I didn’t want to see him. Not after a crash that big. What I do know is that I genuinely thought he was dead." Richard managed to escape the wreckage with a shattered knee and a broken rib, but made a full recovery in Swiss hospital. Six years on, he believes his long-term memory has been affected by the first crash, but is "too scared" to go for medical tests to see if he's at risk of developing other conditions.

"I have to consciously write memories down and work hard to recall them sometimes," he admitted to Steven Bartlett on The Diary of a CEO podcast in February 2023. "It might be because I'm 53, it might be because I'm working a lot and I'm tired, it might be the onset of something else..." He's also sworn off dangerous stunts, telling the Mirror: "I’ve a beautiful wife and two beautiful daughters. I’m not going to risk leaving them."

Richard and Mindy share two daughters together - Isabella, 24, and Willow, 22. The former Top Gear presenter hosts a podcast with Izzy - Who We Are Now - and admitted last year that he became emotional when Izzy made a realisation about his line of work.

"We had a really wonderful moment walking across London. We had just recorded a podcast and we were going to do some filming, we were really busy. She just turned me and said, 'Daddy? What you do - it's work, isn't it?' And I said, 'Yes, it's a job. It always has been.' I could have cried at that point because it was like, 'Yes, I've been working all these years and not just messing about.' It's quite lovely."

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