Richard Hammond’s Daughter Criticizes Him for his Dangerous Crashes and Absence During Her Upbringing, Following His Divorce After 28 Years of Marriage

Izzy, the daughter of Richard Hammond, openly acknowledged that her father can be described as an ‘idiot,’ particularly in light of the risky nature of his profession and the alarming accidents he has experienced throughout his career.

In discussing her upbringing, the 24-year-old influencer shed light on the challenges her mother Mindy faced, revealing that her father’s absence during her formative years due to his commitments filming Top Gear and The Grand Tour caused some frustration within their family.

Recently, the 55-year-old Top Gear personality confirmed the dissolution of their 28-year marriage. There are already speculations that Mindy, aged 59, is inclined to retain ownership of the castle located in Herefordshire as part of their impending divorce settlement.

Appearing on Ben Fowler’s podcast Road To Success just days before the news of her parents’ split, Izzy was asked: ‘Would you call your dad a daredevil or an idiot?’ 

The keen motorhead replied: ‘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.’

In 2006 the presenter suffered life-threatening head injuries and was in a coma following a high-speed crash during filming for the hit BBC show. 

Then later in 2017, Mindy publicly warned her husband that he would have to quit TV if he crashed his car badly again – after he was involved in a second high-speed crash. 

Discussing how her father wasn’t always around for her and her sister Willow, 22, she added: ‘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.’

She explained some work trips meant he was gone for over a month adding: ‘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.’

Mindy previously said she had warned Richard about his reckless behaviour, saying to him: ‘I did say three strikes and you’re out. You’ve had two goes.’

Appearing on ITV’s This Morning, Mindy said: ‘He has one of these every ten years so I’ve marked the next one in my diary.’

Richard has repeatedly apologised to his wife and two daughters for putting them through more trauma.

Mindy said: ‘I’ve got teenage daughters and a nine-year-old man’.

Meanwhile Izzy also opened up on the impact of her dad’s terrifying Top Gear crash as she explained he could ‘barely function, let alone be a father’. 

Izzy was just seven-years-old at the time, however in a recent podcast, released just days before Richard and his wife Mindy announced their split, she spoke candidly about how the incident affected the family and left him ‘doolally’. 

She explained: ‘Obviously the crash affected all of us in varying different ways.

‘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. 

‘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.’

At the time Mindy flew to be at her husband’s bedside after he careered off the Swiss hillside after Richard was left in a coma for two weeks following the accident. 

On Friday MailOnline revealed that Richard’s wife Mindy ended their marriage months ago.

The former Top Gear star had been desperately trying to save his 28-year marriage until very recently, but the couple publicly announced they were splitting for good on Thursday.

Their shock split comes amid claims from insiders that Richard has become increasingly harder to live with in recent years due to injuries sustained in two near-fatal car crashes. 

An insider told the Mail: ‘Richard has been through an awful lot and the knock-on effect from the crashes has impacted his relationship.

‘It’s understandable given the sheer magnitude of the accidents and the impact caused both physically and mentally, he’s done so well to recover and get back to normal life.

‘But they have changed him, there’s no getting away from it, and his relationship with Mindy has been harmed during the fallout.’ 

Richard’s representatives declined to comment when contacted by MailOnline. 

As part of an impending divorce, Mindy, 59, reportedly wants to keep the £7million Bollitree Castle in Herefordshire. 

In the wake of their split, Richard was said to have been banished to his converted barn where he stored his motorbikes, but has now moved to a rented property in a nearby village where he runs his ‘Smallest Cog’ car-restoration garage.

Richard married Mindy in 2002 after they first met back in 1995, with the presenter previously sharing that there was an instant attraction between them.