Chris Harris reveals scary extent of hate messages after joining Top Gear BBC\/ YouTube: The Late Brake ShowChris Harris is a journalist, a font of car knowledge, and now presenter of BBC\u2019s Top Gear. However, it didn\u2019t exactly go smoothly for Harris on his first season of Top Gear, as revealed during an episode of The Late Brake Show on YouTube. Chris Harris is a household name for any petrolhead. From his days at Autocar magazine to his YouTube series Chris Harris On Cars, the man is a walking encyclopedia of four-wheeled knowledge. Having been asked to join the Top Gear team following the departure of Clarkson, Hammond, and May, Harris took the BBC up on their offer, but it didn\u2019t get off to the smoothest of starts. With Clarkson et al having built up such a dedicated fanbase during their time on Top Gear, replacing them was always going to be tricky. In theory, Chris Harris was a perfect choice, but it seems the British public didn\u2019t always share that opinion, as discussed with Jonny Smith on an episode of The Late Brake Show. Chris Harris on Top Gear While the first \u2018new\u2019 top gear team of Chris Evans, Chris Harris, Sabine Schmitz, Rory Reid, and Eddie Jordan first hit screens, there was an expected backlash from long-time fans of the show. However, it turns out that the backlash went beyond passing comments about how people \u2018preferred the old show.\u2019 Chris revealed that he had received a number of personal, direct hate-mail messages and that he had \u201cnever experienced hate like it\u201d during his first season on Top Gear, as \u201conce the population wants to hate something\u2026 you\u2019re in trouble.\u201d Harris admitted that he wrote openly at the time to say \u201canyone who takes on Top Gear [after the original team left] were psychotic\u201d and yet despite that, he took the job, though he admits he \u201cstill stands by that\u201d when referring to his statement. Clip begins at 11:15 \u201cTop Gear is a complicated brand\u201d Chris was no stranger to the task ahead of him, however: \u201cTop Gear is a complicated brand because it has an interesting legacy\u201d though he openly states that the first series he did with Chris Evans was \u201cnot a good experience for any of us.\u201d Discussing that first season, he says it was a \u201cbumpy ride\u2026 but I\u2019m glad I did it because 17-year-old me would\u2019ve been profoundly disappointed if I hadn\u2019t given it a go!\u201d Not only that, but he also spoke of his friendship with one-time co-host Matt LeBlanc: \u201cHe\u2019s a great bloke and genuinely loves his cars\u2026 he\u2019s been a really good friend to me through a difficult time. I needed someone with his level of experience to help navigate resurrecting a brand (Top Gear).\u201d Thankfully, he has now settled into the role of Top Gear presenter alongside Paddy McGuinness and Freddie Flintoff, who Chris admits is one of his \u201cheroes.\u201d Hopefully, this means the hate has stopped too, as the trio \u2013 individually or as a unit \u2013 have certainly re-invented the Top Gear show and made it their own.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Chris Harris reveals scary extent of hate messages after joining Top Gear BBC\/ YouTube: The Late Brake ShowChris Harris is a journalist, a font of car knowledge, and now presenter of BBC\u2019s Top Gear. However, it didn\u2019t exactly go smoothly for Harris on his first season of Top Gear, as revealed during an episode of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35169","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35169","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35169"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35169\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}