WHEN Richard Hammond’s life was hanging by a thread after his 288mph car crash it was his wife Mindy who helped save him.
Not only did the former Top Gear star credit her shouting at him as he lay in a coma with bringing him back to consciousness, she also spent years aiding his recovery from a life-changing head injury.
But now three decades after ‘the Hamster’ fell in love with Mindy at “first sight” the couple have split.
Mindy and Richard’s marriage was one of the longest in showbusiness and was thought to be one of the strongest.
But the 55-year-old TV presenter has admitted in the past that he was a “crappy father” at times because he was away working so much.
And Mindy, 59, perhaps not in jest, warned him he’d be out if he suffered a third horror smash.
Meanwhile, Richard admitted just over a year ago that he was in a “mid-life crisis”.
Hammond announced the end of his marriage in a “little update” on the social media site X today.
He told fans: “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.”
Journalist Mindy met him when they both worked at a public relations firm in 1995.
He’d taken on the job after struggling to make ends meet as a radio presenter.
In his book autobiography On The Edge: My Story, which was co-written with Mindy, he revealed that he fell head over heels for her straight away.
He wrote: “In an instant, I fell in love with her and realised I had met my soul-mate and best friend for life.”
Their first daughter Izzy, 23, was born before they got married in 2002, the year that Richard landed the Top Gear job alongside James May and Jeremy Clarkson.
At that point he was not famous and had to put in the hours to make the show the massive hit it became for the BBC.
He was so tired when he got back from a long shoot, he couldn’t face his parental duties.
Richard revealed to The Sunday Times recently: “It sounds ridiculous now given how lucky I’ve been with my job, but there were nights when I drove home from a shoot and parked round the corner until I knew bathtime was finished.
“I was pretty c****y as a father.”
His dedication to entertainment went too far in 2006, when his jet powered dragster crashed at 288mph during a final run of filming for Top Gear.
A tyre had blown, sending the car on to its side and leaving Richard with a serious brain injury.
He was airlifted to hospital where it was touch and go as to whether the unconscious daredevil would survive.
Mindy asked the nurse “can I shout at him?” and was told she could do anything.
His wife recalled: “So I did, I shouted at him. The way he remembers it is that he was taking a nice easy route – he knew he shouldn’t, but he was doing it anyway.
“And then he thought ‘Mindy’s cross’ so he made the effort and came back.”
When the father-of-two came out of the coma he didn’t recognise his wife and it took a long time for him to recover his memory.
Doctors warned Mindy ‘You’ll have to watch out for anger, but also a tendency towards compulsive behaviour, paranoia or obsession’ due to his brain injury.
But Richard joked; “My wife says I was the nicest I’ve ever been when I was suffering from post-traumatic amnesia.”
He couldn’t remember reading the newspaper or what he had asked to eat.
Despite having been told he’d have to spend the next 15 months in hospital, he was back on Top Gear in three months.
The marriage appeared to remain strong after the accident.
Richard has often spoken in interviews about his admiration for his wife.
Since then has said “She is tough, clever, pretty, resilient, funny, everything. I love her to distraction” and “she is the reason I haven’t pinged off the rails and lost it completely. Meeting her was the luckiest day of my life.”
She was not impressed, though, when Richard suffered another near fatal accident in 2017 while racing a concept car for Amazon’s The Grand Tour TV show.
After crossing the finishing line in Switzerland, Richard lost control and the vehicle ended up upside down with him thinking “I’m going to die.”
Richard was born in Birmingham in 1970 and studied photography, as well as television production.
He kickstarted his career in broadcasting at BBC Radio York.
This saw him land another role at BBC Radio Cumbria, Leeds and Lancashire, before he left in 1995 to follow his passion for cars.
He always dreamt of presenting motoring TV shows but initially took a job working in PR after leaving the BBC.
He was involved in corporate events for clients including the Ferrari Owners’ Club and Renault Sport.
In 1998 he earned his debut motoring TV job on, hosting Motorweek on Satellite channel Men & Motors.
This opened up many more avenues on screen and eventually he found his way to presenting Top Gear in 2002.
The household show garnered up to six million viewers at its peak.
While filming with Top Gear Richard crashed in a jet-powered traveling at over 300 mph.
The dad-of-two is one of the only people to have ever survived such a horror smash.
Hammond has also hosted science and nature programmes including Should I Worry About? on BBC One.
Other TV projects for the BBC included being the face of Battle of the Geeks, Time Commanders and featuring as a team captain on Petrol Heads.
He also presented ITV’s eponymous Richard Hammond’s Five O’Clock Show and Sky One’s Brainiac.
Thankfully, it was not as serious as the previous smash and on his way to hospital he asked to call Mindy to reassure her.
Richard said: “My worst experience was ringing my wife Mindy as they strapped me to a stretcher board next to an air ambulance and a blazing supercar at the bottom of a Swiss mountain.
“I said ‘Mindy, I’m really sorry, but I’ve done it again. Please don’t worry. My head is not damaged. I am all okay – only a few broken bits that will mend.’ It was pretty grim.”
After that he agreed to take less risks, knowing that another smash would be “disrespectful”.
Mindy joked to him that it was a case of “third strike and you’re out.”
In 2018 the couple think they were gassed by burglars as they slept in a holiday home in Saint-Tropez on the French Riviera
Guests, including their other daughter Willow, 20, had their watches stolen.
Richard said: “They never caught the guys who did it. It happened to a lot of people.”
The couple will have to decide who gets to keep the £7million Bollitree Castle home they share in Herefordshire, massive car collection and array of animals.
They bought the six bedroom mock castle, which has a swimming pool and 20 acres of land, in 2008.
In the past they had four cats, eight horses, two goats and a flock of sheep.
Richard ended his message about their break-up by saying: “We won’t be commenting further and sincerely hope that our privacy and that of our children will be respected at this time.”
