Will Young says Grand Tour's Richard Hammond is ‘the worst’ for ‘homophobic jokes’

The singer called Hammond's casual homophobia 'maddening'

Will Young has come out to criticise Richard Hammond for homophobic and generally insensitive jokes made during an episode of The Grand Tour. Speaking at The Times and The Sunday Times Cheltenham Literature Festival on the subject of the Colombian special of the Amazon Prime show, Young took issue with a joke designed by producers that suggested Jeremy Clarkson was driving a 'hairdresser's car' - essentially suggesting general effeminacy. Clarkson was driving a pink Suzuki Vitara but as Young told the Sunday Times, the interpretation was that "basically, Jeremy Clarkson is gay. They had him wearing a pink shirt. They spray the car pink. They have him playing 'It’s Raining Men'". Young, 42, said he even tried to "track down the producers" so he could tell them, “you’re a c***”, and while Clarkson is often perceived as the most controversial of the former Top Gear cast, he insisted it was Hammond that was the worst of the trio. He went on to say of the production team: "They’re sitting in an edit suite for nine months. They created the whole thing and it was Amazon that let it go out. I was so shocked and so upset."

Young is also reported to have said "Jeremy Clarkson is the least worst" when compared with his colleagues Richard Hammond and James May.

"The other two, in my opinion, are worse," he added. "The worst one is Richard Hammond. He’s the worst because he says things like: 'I've got lots of gay friends.'"

Young had previously criticised the show back in 2019 when the cast made similar comments about a vehicle being "a gay man's car". While all three have of course denied allegations of homophobia, many are still pointing towards this clip from 2017, which also caused outrage at the time. https://twitter.com/ProducerOllie/status/813521951725649920?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E813521951725649920%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fmetro.co.uk%2F2017%2F12%2F07%2Frichard-hammond-entirely-rejects-claims-anti-gay-remarks-coming-7141790%2F