Explaining his decision, Evans said: “Stepping down from Top Gear”.
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British TV personality and producer Chris Evans announced Monday he’s departing the popular auto show.
The Guardian, in other news, added that constant criticism, falling ratings and breakdown of his relationship with co-host Matt LeBlanc were what caused his exit from the show. It’s likely he won’t be seeing much of that deal after the show hit an all-time ratings low of just 1.9 million in the series finale.
A woman who worked with Evans in the 1990s claims he exposed himself to her and grabbed her breasts.
‘I remain a huge fan of the show, always have been, always will be’.
Top Gear, once blackly lauded as the most downloaded show in the world, has seen its audience size in the United Kingdom almost halved since returning in May.
“The new series has so far notched up over 30m views in the United Kingdom alone and has already been sold to 130 territories worldwide”.
It was only a a few months ago that Friends star Matt LeBlanc was named as the first American to cohost the hit BBC series Top Gear – and now he might be driving solo!
Since the debut of season 23, Evans has stood out as the most controversial of the six new hosts. Evans has of course denied and commented on his other works, including presenting BBC Radio 2’s Breakfast Show, saying those will continue as before.
BBC News understands the remaining five presenters – Matt LeBlanc, Rory Reid, Chris Harris, Sabine Schmitz and Eddie Jordan – will return for the next series, which is due to begin filming in September. Once again, the future of Top Gear is uncertain.
Director of BBC Studios Mark Linsey said that Chris Evans “is stepping aside from his duties on Top Gear. In the end you just think “f*** off”, they said. This incident also saw the departure of co-hosts Richard Hammond and James May.
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The trio are now set to present a new vehicle show together on Amazon Prime, starting later this year.
