RACHAEL Woods is the wife of legendary cricketeer and Top Gear presenter Freddie Flintoff.
Ahead of the release of his self-titled film, Freddie opened up in April 2025 about the terrifying car crash he suffered three years earlier.
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Intrepid entrepreneur
Rachael is a former model and entrepreneur.
She studied law and French at Sheffield University before dropping her studies to pursue a career at Capital Radio.
Eventually, she decided to quit her broadcasting career to launch an event company named Strawberry Promotions.
The model met her future husband Freddie in 2002 at an event to promote her business.
Rachael crossed paths with him at the Edgbaston cricket ground in Birmingham and the pair began dating shortly after.
Marrying a cricket legend
Rachael married Freddie on March 5, 2005, at the Pavilion Road Hotel in Knightsbridge, London.
They live together in a £2.5 million home in Altrincham, Greater Manchester.
Unfortunately, the couple did not enjoy a honeymoon due to Freddie’s job responsibilities.
She confessed that she wasn’t taken with him at first in an interview with the Daily Mail.
Wools admitted: “He really wasn’t my type physically, because I generally prefer dark men, but I thought he was the funniest guy I had ever met.
“He obtained my phone number and texted me a couple of times, and we went up for a drink, and I was really blown away by his charm.”
Throughout their marriage, Freddie battled with bulimia and would often come home drunk and “stinking”.
However, Rachael stayed with him throughout his struggle and helped him overcome his drinking and his eating disorder.
Mum to four
Rachael and Freddie have four children – Holly, Corey, Rocky, and Preston.
The couple’s fourth child may have come as a welcomed surprise after the Top Gear host previously admitted that he didn’t think he and Rachael would have any more children after Rocky.
In 2016, he told The Sun: “We thought about it. I originally wanted five but you have three and that felt like enough. I couldn’t go back to the nappy stage now.”
Rachael said when Freddie was busy with his career in 2007, the former cricket star missed his family.
“Holly is a complete daddy’s girl, and when Andrew’s around, I never get a look-in,” she said at the time.
“She misses him when he’s away, but she makes up for it by carrying around a photograph of him – when she has a tea party for her dolls, she puts the picture on a chair, so Daddy can be there too.”
She added that he spoke on the phone with them multiple times a day to make up for his absence.
Rachael said: “It’s much harder for him. He misses the children a lot, and foreign tours aren’t nearly as exotic as they sound – you can’t play cricket 24 hours a day, and there are only so many DVDs you can watch.
“But neither of us would ever complain, we are both so lucky that his career has been going well and we appreciate all the financial security it has given us.”
Freddie’s horrifying crash
Freddie suffered a terrifying car crash in 2022 on the set of the hit BBC TV show Top Gear.
The cricketeer opened up about the incident on his new Disney+ show Flintoff.
He said: “We were probably doing about 40 or 45. They were showing me how to get the car going sideways, and a wheel came off at the front.
“It’s a funny thing rolling a car because there’s the point of no return and everything slows down. It’s so weird.
“I think it was half an hour, 40 minutes, just in agony until the air ambulance came. It was just: ‘This can’t be happening to me, it can’t be happening.’
The injury left him with extensive facial injuries and several broken ribs, forcing healthcare professionals to rush him to hospital.
He was forced to undergo a gruelling recovery process, but was cheered on by fellow Top Gear presenter Richard Hammond.
Richard had also experienced a crash on the show, as had Jeremy Clarkson, leading some fans to describe the show as cursed.
The BBC decided to axe the show and paid out £9 million to Freddie.
However, Freddie’s recovery process led him to wish that he had died in the crash.
He shared that his own son was frightened of his face which was healing, making his mental health even worse.
After a long stint out of the spotlight, Freddie eventually returned for the second series of Field of Dreams and the reboot of 80s show Bullseye.
He will launch his own show Flintoff on April 25, where he will tell fans everything about his terrifying accident.
The programme will be available to stream exclusively on Disney+.
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