Richard Hammond's daughter brands him an 'idiot' as she opens up on gruelling car crashes

Richard Hammond on impact of brain injury on his family

Richard Hammond's eldest daughter Izzy has branded her father an “idiot” who has “no fear” while reflecting on his daredevil job and his terrifying life-changing crashes.

The former Top Gear star, 55, got into several car crashes over the years while working on Top Gear and The Grand Tour. In 2006, he was involved in a horrific car crash while filming for the BBC show and ended up in a coma in intensive care for several weeks after suffering a brain injury.

His wife, who he recently split from after 28 years together, was by his side throughout the traumatic ordeal. He previously suggested that Mindy's "screaming" at his bedside helped awaken him from the coma.

Richard reflected on the experience in a video on YouTube back in 2022, in which he recalled what he dreamt about in the coma.

He confessed that he had been experiencing a "dream" that was "really vivid" while he was recovering with "a lot of morphine" flowing through his veins towards the end of his time in the coma. The broadcaster explained that it involved him walking in the Lake District.

Izzy Hammond described her father Richard Hammond as an "idiot" (Image: Getty)

Now, his daughter Izzy has opened up about what life was like for her growing up with a famous dad who was willing to risk it all to deliver entertaining television every week on the motoring shows.

The content creator, 24, appeared on Ben Fowler's podcast Road To Success days before her parents announced their split last week.

In the telling chat, she admitted that Richard wasn’t around much when she was a child due to his filming commitments. Ben cheeckily asked "Would you call your dad a daredevil or an idiot?" - and she answered without hesitation.

She told listeners: “We've done handbrake turns around roundabouts, sorry I know that's incredibly illegal you might have to cut that out. He's an idiot.

“He has that thing that racing drivers have where they just don't have the fear. Everyone has that line where it's like ‘okay I know where the line is’, he just doesn't have that. He really genuinely would just go and go and go,” she intimated.

Richard Hammond and wife Mindy announced their split last week (Image: Getty )

Izzy recalled that Richard's work trips took him away for a month at a time meaning time with him was memorable.

She went on: "I always think it must be frustrating for my mum because probably some of my happiest memories are ironically with my dad because he wasn't there that much because he was filming.

"He wasn't there a lot and that's all I really knew growing up. I mean I'm not this is sounding like I had some awful childhood, I really didn't at all. I think my parents were really good at navigating because they had no idea what was going to happen.

"But they were very good at sort of drip feeding information so we'd know a bit what he was doing but not enough to worry us because most of the time they were doing stupid stuff that we really shouldn't know about."

Obviously, Izzy was aware of Richard’s near fatal crash while filming Top Gear in 2006 and she gave an insight into the aftermath, admitting he still has memory issues today as a result of it.

Izzy, who was seven at the time, recalled he could “barely function, let alone be a father” in the weeks and months afterwards.

“He was just not with it at all and so I just have a lot of gaps in memory of him as a dad because for a long time he was barely a human, like he could barely function and was trying to relearn how to be a human being let alone be a father figure.

“Obviously the crash affected all of us in varying different ways,” she explained. “I think I was seven and it was more the recovery I think that really was the thing that affected us as a family because he was absolutely doolally for months and months afterwards."