Top Gear's new team has painted the LGBT rainbow flag on two cars they raced in Brunei as a row rumbled over their decision to film there just before the Sultan changed the law to allow gay people to be stoned to death.
Andrew 'Freddie' Flintoff, who hosts the show with Paddy McGuinness and Chris Harris, revealed they have decided against cutting the film from the new series despite the human rights issues there.
He said: 'We would never have filmed in Brunei had the law been announced beforehand. No one deserves to be stoned to death, whoever they love. Love is love'.
But critics have pointed out that the country's implementation of strict sharia laws began in 2014 when crimes such as murder, terrorism, drug trafficking, arson, kidnap, treason and perjury became punishable by hanging or stoning.
The last execution was in 2017 and around six people are understood to be on death row.
Mr Flintoff said today: 'Even though it has since been claimed that the laws will not be enforced, the threat still stands, and even the threat is an appalling abuse of human rights.
'In the past couple of months we have thought very hard about dropping the film entirely but we shot it before the change in the law, and both the Gurkhas and other Bruneians worked incredibly hard to make it happen. We don't want all their efforts to be for nothing. So we've decided to go ahead and show it'.
Freddie Flintoff poses with the two cars they used in Brunei - but he claimed they would 'never' have gone if they knew the Sultan would change the law to allow gay people to be stoned to death
The Top Gear team took the cars to the jungle to meet the Ghurka's (pictured) before a race to the Sultan of Brunei's palace
Many have praised the decision to paint the cars and said it would bring them back to Top Gear
Others questioned whether the Top Gear should ever have gone to Brunei in the
He added in apiece for the Guardian: 'We flew home on 28 March. That date is important because when we landed we found out that – as we'd been in the air – the sultan had announced new laws making homosexuality and adultery punishable by stoning to death. We were horrified. Like millions of other people around the world, I utterly condemn Brunei's actions'.
The former cricketer and the new Top Gear team, who made their BBC debut last night, flew to the Brunei rainforest in March, filming with the Gurkhas before racing to the Sultan's royal palace in Bandar Seri Begawan.
Mr Flintoff said they were 'in the air' and on the way home to Britain when the Sultan announced homosexuality would become a death penalty offence.
Brunei's government has said that the change in the law is about prevention rather than punishment.
Top Gear's statement has been hailed by campaigners, with many calling it a welcome change from the non-PC years when Top Gear was made by Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May, who moved to Amazon.
But one critic said the car painting, however welcome, had 'the distinctive aroma of damage control'.
Another questioning the decision to go to Brunei in the first place tweeted: 'This [law change] was part of a roll-out of a hardline interpretation of sharia law which has been going on for over five years. I find it bizarre to say 'we wouldn't have gone to this country with a despotic govt which attacks human rights if we'd known this one thing'.
Many viewers loved the non-PC elements of the show, which ended
