The Grand Tour

The Grand Tour’s Richard Hammond Responds To Homophobic Allegations

Earlier this year and the year before that, The Grand Tour presenter Richard Hammond came under allegations of being homophobic. Will Young, a pop singer who made his name in Pop Idol, was the main push behind these allegations, but now Richard Hammond has responded in a recent interview about the upcoming episode, Carnage A Trois.

Young, who posted to his Twitter account at the time where he called out The Grand Tour, later had an interview where he labelled Richard Hammond the “worst” of the trio after he criticised the show for making jokes about a “gay man’s car”. Richard has denied this:

I made it plain at the time,” he replied, talking about the Will Young controversy. “I said that I’m not and we’re not remotely homophobic in the show.

“If anything, we’re very glad to be in an increasingly inclusive society that welcomes everybody, because gender or sexual orientation shouldn’t stand in the way of anything. So, that’s all I’ve got to say on it really.”

James May also commented on the moment in relation to the next episode:

“We make fun of people, but that’s not quite the same thing, and we try to be inclusive in that everybody is equally open for mockery and division, mainly ourselves, let’s be honest.”

He continued: “I’m not aware that we made any crass, homophobic jokes or comments. I hope we didn’t. I don’t think we’re running scared of cancel culture and all the rest of it, but I suppose, unconsciously, and just like everybody else in the world, we’re probably recessing the way we think about things, which is no bad thing at the moment because it’s society and society is making progress and it must always move on.”

He also mentioned that he believes they’re modern, progressive people: “We’re not entrenched. We’re not saying, ‘we live in the 1970s, could you make us a cup of tea, love’. We’re not doing that, we’re actually quite modern people, I think. On the whole, we’re reasonably progressive.”

The Grand Tour Carnage A Trois is available to watch on Amazon Prime Video from December 17. 

Alex Harrington

Alex started racing at a young age so certainly knows his way around a car and a track. He can just about put a sentence together too, which helps. He has a great interest in the latest models, but would throw all of his money at a rusty old French classic and a 300ZX. Contact: [email protected]

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