Former Top Gear host Paddy McGuinness has spoken out after the BBC confirmed the show will not be returning.
Top Gear’s future has been in doubt since last year, when presenter Freddie Flintoff had to be airlifted to hospital after a serious accident on the set of the long-running motoring show.
On Tuesday, the BBC announced it was “resting” Top Gear indefinitely, shortly after it was revealed that the corporation had reached a settlement with the former cricketer and issued a public apology to him.
The following night, Paddy shared a collage of himself and co-hosts Freddie Flintoff and Chris Harris on Instagram, alongside the message: “We were always going to be bellends but we were your bellends.”
He added: “Thanks for all the love over the years folks, it was very much appreciated.”
In a statement, the BBC insisted it “remains committed to Freddie, Chris [Harris] and Paddy [McGuinness] who have been at the heart of the show’s renaissance since 2019”, and is still “excited about new projects being developed with each of them”.
“We will have more to say in the near future on this,” a spokesperson added. “We know resting the show will be disappointing news for fans, but it is the right thing to do.”
The trio had presented Top Gear together since 2019, when the show began its new era.
Prior to that, it had been hosted by an array of different presenters since Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May’s much-publicised exit in 2015, after Clarkson’s physical and verbal assault on a crew member while filming on location.