About a year ago, we reported that Chris Evans would be taking over as host of the newly revamped Top Gear, making American readers burst with confusion in the brief seconds before they realized we weren’t talking about Chris Evans, the star of Captain America. No, we were talking about the Chris Evans across the pond—the Chris Evans of The Chris Evans Breakfast Show, a BBC Radio 2 program, i.e., the Chris Evans with red hair and glasses. That Evans took over as host for the BBC’s popular, long-running driving show after former host Jeremy Clarkson departed in the wake of an alleged physical altercation with a producer. And now, in an incredibly fast change of course, Evans has announced that he too will be hitting the road. According to Deadline, after just one season as host of the BBC Two rebooted series, Evans is leaving Top Gear.
Top Gear’s producers confusingly also tapped Matt LeBlanc as one of Evan’s co-hosts back in February. The new Top Gear has had poor ratings, debuting to 4.4 million in the overnights in May and then concluding with a season finale that averaged just 1.9 million. Captain America’s Chris Evans received the brunt of the backlash against the revamped show, as haters took to Twitter to complain and incorrectly tagged @chrisevans instead of @achrisevans.
The host’s departure doesn’t really come as a surprise. According to Deadline, there have been reports of some on-set drama between Evans and LeBlanc, so maybe LeBlanc said “how you doin’?” one too many times for Evans’ liking. The BBC is negotiating with LeBlanc to keep him around for next season, presumably in hopes that he can save a dying franchise. Meanwhile, Top Gear USA, the stateside iteration of the franchise, was canceled last week by History. There’s really no way to put a positive spin on it: Top Gear has been running on fumes.
Evans announced the parting of ways via his Twitter account: