Richard Hammond was left mortified when his daughter asked if they could still afford KFC when his Top Gear co-star Jeremy Clarkson was axed from the BBC for punching a producer.
Hammond worried about his financial future when the fracas meant he quit Top Gear alongside Clarkson and James May, with a faux castle house to upkeep and his daughter’s school fees to pay for.
Reports emerged this week that Clarkson has now been axed from Amazon Prime after his controversial column about Meghan Markle exploded – with him claiming she should be “parade[d] naked through the streets of every town in Britain while the crowds chant ‘Shame!’ and throw lumps of excrement at her”.
READ MORE: James May says he’s having ‘difficult time’ as co-star Jeremy Clarkson ‘axed’ from Prime
(Image: Getty Images)
And it could leave Hammond and May in another tricky spot, as The Grand Tour is allegedly slated to end in 2024.
It means Richard is reliving that tense period of his life when his finances were at risk, as he explained he was left red-faced by his daughter Izzy’s question in KFC.
Speaking on the Fuelling Around podcast, Richard explained: “I was looking at my house thinking ‘this is going to get expensive to run really’ and looking at my two girls in their nice private school uniforms – ‘oooh, this is all going to really to hurt’.
“So we sat them down, Mindy and I and said: ‘Right guys, you need to know, I know people have mentioned it at school but my job’s gone and that’s where the money comes from. We haven’t got a money tree in the garden’.”
(Image: willowhammond/Instagram)
Hammond confirmed that James May came to stay with him for a few days after Top Gear finally wrapped – which is when the incident occurred.
He explained: “We’d gone to Kentucky Fried Chicken to get lunch for everyone with Izzy. We got to the front of the queue, put our order in, and James typically said: ‘Oh, oh, I’ll pay Hammond’ and I said ‘no, no mate, I’ll pay’ and he said ‘no, no, no I’ll pay’.
“And there was a pause, just when the whole restaurant had gone quiet, and Izzy said: ‘Well technically lads, I should pay as you haven’t got a job between you’. And the place detonated with laughter.”
(Image: BBC Worldwide Ltd/Ellis O’Brien)
For more of the latest showbiz news from Daily Star, make sure you sign up to one of our newsletters here.
It didn’t end there, as Hammond added: “She obviously then thought ‘this is the best game’. So subsequently, at the end of the queue in Morrisons, as I was waiting to pay she would say very loudly: ‘Daddy, daddy, so when does your credit card stop working?’ and I’d go ‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ and again a whole store of people were in hysterics.”
Richard said the end of Top Gear – after Clarkson hit BBC boss Oisin Tymon after a row – was the “end of an era”, but the trio “knew we had to stick together”.
It is unclear what will happen amid reports Clarkson has now been axed from streaming service Prime, with a source telling Variety that the shows currently in the works will go ahead, but no new projects will be commissioned.
Clarkson is reportedly set to leave the network for good by the end of 2024, with Clarkson’s Farm coming to an end after three series.
READ NEXT:
Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
