There is a tendency, especially among the most unthinking in society, to believe that high, even astronomical salaries can cover all ills and ailments – physical and emotional – among sports stars.

“Oh, I’d put up with that for the money he’s on…”. “What are they complaining about? They’re loaded.” is the kind of talk from the basement-dwelling troll who has neither the talent, aptitude, nor salary to offer their own experiential take on the matter. In fact, like most social commentators (‘citizen journalists’, award-winning sports writer Paul Hayward dismisses them as) who only get as far as using their own dirty laundry – literal and figurative – for research, the further they are from the status being discussed, the louder the honking from that basement.

Andrew ‘Freddie’ Flintoff made a documentary five years ago for the BBC on his hidden addiction to bulimia, the eating disorder he – not unlike many self-unaware addicts – felt he could take control of at any time. But a person with an addiction is never in control; that’s exactly what an addiction is.

He lifted the lid on a mental illness that could have affected his entire career. Instead, throughout his entire time on the field, he chose to keep it to himself while he was playing. He was ready to go public, or at least confide in the inner sanctum of that most sacred of places - the dressing room. Just at that moment, the England team’s dietician came clean that many athletes she had advised indulged in bulimic activities – “Something I don’t think we’ll find in here, shall we?” That caustic remark drove Flintoff’s issues further underground.

Flintoff’s issues started when, at the age of 19, he’d broken into the England junior teams, and he found himself at a bulky 130 kilos. While he could still function as a sportsman, the likes of The Sun, not exactly an upstanding moral arbiter, nor a paragon of virtue with any concept of self-awareness, decided to label him ‘Fat Freddie’ or ‘Fatty Flintoff’. Just because they felt they could. Any emotional repercussions are never in their remit.

From there, he always felt that weight, fitness, and size were his problems—and his alone. He tackled this by what he felt to be the only method of bulimia - binge eating followed by regurgitation.

While he had a stellar career in cricket, he retired well before he probably should have. At 6’4”, there would always have been issues with his joints - in a person with such a frame, whose sport demands peak physical excellence, especially on the joints, it’s not surprising. However, he retired from top-class cricket at the age of 31, a sport where excellence can still be achieved well into the late 30s.

The documentary lifted the lid on many prevailing social attitudes. A pivotal moment occurred later on, when it was suggested that if he managed his weight regimen professionally and adequately, he might have been able to continue beyond his 32nd year.

MENTAL HEALTH IN SPORTS

A vicious press and media, often comprised of individuals with little or no experience of the pressures of elite sport, can be brutal. As someone who has attended press conferences at Premier League matches, I can attest to how often questions are so poorly framed, usually based around a predetermined notion or agenda, and the respondent is expected to answer the most absurd or irrelevant questions. Many questions like this are asked by up-and-coming writers trying to make a name for themselves by being a bit edgy or controversial, forgetting the fact that the reply isn’t about them. It’s about the sportsperson they’ve arbitrarily decided to round on.

Mental health issues rarely stray too far from the surface in virtually all top sports stars. Whether it’s a player competing on their own or in a team, confidence is a significant component of sports excellence – and confidence can be such a fragile beast. Instances that happen, as in the paragraph above, don’t help. A player or coach is expected to deal with criticism (and fair criticism is a legitimate approach in sport), but it becomes singularly unfair if that which is being levelled at them either isn’t within their realm, or worse, simply isn’t true.

It’s that unfairness which some writers choose to judge any given sportsperson, with no though often considered for the (at times, devastating) consequences. For some in the press, it’s a game to try and take the top people down for little more reason than ‘they can’.

In Flintoff’s case, they rounded on a fairly shy, unassuming teenager, and chose to fat-shame him. Classy.

Cricket is one of the rare sports that combines individual talent with a team ethic. It all depends on whether you’re batting or bowling. Out in the middle can be a lonely place, especially if you’re not on form. As a result, it has now been recognised as one where mental health, especially depression, in the form of suicide, is becoming more common. It is, after all, the UK’s biggest killer of men under 50.

Depression is often at the root of this issue, and cricket is a sport that has taken longer than others to catch up on mental health issues. Famously, David Bairstow, who had played four Test matches for England, and whose son Jonny currently plays for England, was found in his garage in 1998, albeit the Coroner recorded an open verdict.

More recently, in August 2024, former England batsman Graham Thorpe, who had played 100 Test matches, took his own life at Esher railway station. His family publicly revealed his cause of death and mental health struggles a week after his death, with the intention of raising awareness.

POST-CRICKET

Not long after Flintoff retired in 2009, he was straight into his next career. His on-field charisma also percolated off the field. In March 2010, Flintoff became a team captain on the Sky One television sports panel show A League of Their Own, hosted by James Corden. He also had a stint as a commentator for Sky Sports’ coverage of world darts. He also hosted a radio show on BBC Radio Five Live on Monday nights.

Flintoff also produced a documentary entitled Freddie Flintoff: Hidden Side of Sport, about his and other sports stars’ suffering from clinical depression. This was first aired on the BBC in January 2012. This was his first foray into revealing this side of elite athleticism, and by no means his last. The 202 BBC documentary, and other appearances since, have shown that he wishes to dive deeper; although having seen them, one cannot help but feel that he is still holding back on a deeper, darker malaise.

After this, Flintoff was often on British and Australian TV screens, including being a contestant in the first Australian version of I’m a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! 2015, held in the Kruger National Park in South Africa.

In October 2018, it was announced that Flintoff would be the new host of Top Gear alongside Paddy McGuinness and Chris Harris. Filming for the 27th series of the BBC Two show began in early 2019 and first aired in June 2019. On February 11th, it was reported that Flintoff had crashed into a market stall in Mansfield while filming for the show.

On September 10th 2019, Flintoff crashed a second time while riding a head-first trike at 124 mph during one of the car show’s signature competitions. He was not injured and resumed filming afterwards.

Flintoff was involved in a third crash when filming on December 13th 2022, at the Dunsfold Park Aerodrome, after which he was airlifted to hospital. In October 2023, press reports confirmed that BBC Studios had reached a £9 million financial settlement to compensate Flintoff for the injuries he had sustained.

Speaking in another documentary, ‘Flintoff’, made by Disney+ and released in April 2025, he states that he remembers everything about it. “I thought I was dead, because I was conscious but I couldn’t see anything,” he recalled. “I was thinking, is that it? Is that it? You know what I mean? Just black for the rest of my days? My hat came over my eyes - so I pulled my hat up and I thought, no, I’m not, I’m on the Top Gear track, this is not heaven.”

Flintoff then looked down to see blood and said his “biggest fear” was that he no longer had a face left. “I thought my face had come off. I was frightened to death.” He recalled being in “agony” for between half an hour and 40 minutes until an air ambulance arrived and he was taken to hospital.

Surgeon Jahrad Haq, who treated Flintoff, told the documentary the injuries were “very complex” - a mixture of hard and soft tissue injuries, broken teeth, lost teeth and elements of the upper jaw bone that were also fractured and displaced. He “lost a significant portion of his upper lip - the skin and some of the underlying muscle - and also his lower lip,” he said.

Reflecting on the recovery, Flintoff said, ”This sounds awful. Part of me wishes I’d been killed. Part of me thinks I wish I’d died,” he added. “I didn’t want to kill myself. I don’t want to mistake the two things. I wasn’t wishing, but thinking that this would have been so much easier. Now I try to take the attitude, you know what, the sun will come up tomorrow, and then my kids will still hug me, and I’m probably in a better place now.”

Flintoff was later offered a new role, coaching England Lions - the development squad underneath the England Men’s cricket team. It is a role he said he is “loving”. His wife Rachael told the documentary that his return to the sport was crucial on the road to recovery.

“When Andrew needed it most, cricket was there for him,” she said. “It sounds a bit weird saying it, a bit over the top to say, but I do think cricket saved him. It gave him a reason for being, again.”