Richard Hammond Forced to Defend HUGE Budget

Richard Hammond found himself forced to defend the HUGE budget allocated for the new Amazon motoring show that he, Jeremy Clarkson and James May will begin to film later on this year.

The former Top Gear presenter was a guest on This Morning, but was on the wrong end of a line of questioning from Philip Schofield, that forced Hammond to confront the rumours that Amazon had and were paying out an obscene amount of money for the former Top Gear trio’s new show.

Having initially deflected a question about the budget by saying the series was an “amazing opportunity to reinvent what we do”, Hammond then defended the large sum.

“What we made before was expensive and what we make again will be,” he said, before adding that the new show couldn’t be more perfectly timed.

“The automotive industry is undergoing a tremendous change, and television itself is undergoing a massive sea change. So to report on a changing industry from within a changing industry is a massive challenge.”

The rumours and questions around money have arisen in the last few weeks, led by Piers Morgan who questioned the value of the trio and then echoed last week when Netflix executive Neil Hunt stated that the Top Gear trio were not worth the money. This brought into question whether Amazon had made a colossal mistake taking the three on – especially given the erratic behaviour that eventually led to Clarkson’s dismissal from the BBC.

However, further pushing from Schofield could only get This Morning so far, as Hammond also explained that it wasn’t that he didn’t want to talk about the series, but that the reunited trio  – alongside their BBC Top Gear producer – are still working on it.

Poor old Hammond, to think, all he wanted to do was promote his new series Richard Hammond’s Jungle Quest,  which, if you are interested, starts Wednesday at 9pm on Sky 1.