Any one else been following the drama over The Stig writing his autobiography effectively telling the world who he is, and BBC taking him to court to block it and losing?

It is huge news here in the UK, with headlines in newspapers and on TV channels, several times.

I can understand the BBC's strongly negative and angry reaction, because he had signed a confidentiality agreement in his contract, so that was a dick move on The Stig's part, but upon reading the article below, it becomes clear why he chose to do so, and you actually start to feel sympathy for him.

Interesting read....

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1308890/Why-The-Stig-Ben-Collins-unmasked--1m-losses-frustrated-ambition.html

Losses of £1m, three children in three years and a lifetime of frustrated ambition... why The Stig REALLY unmasked himself

Quote :

"Jeremy Clarkson would be impressed. Outside Ben Collins’ smart Bristol semi are two brand new cars: a £40,000 sporty A5 and — perfect for a growing suburban family — a £40,000 VW people carrier. Meanwhile, inside the four-bedroom £575,000 house in Bristol’s most upmarket area workmen have been renovating the place for weeks. If Ben has been worried about losing his job on Top Gear after unveiling himself as the man who has appeared as The Stig for the past seven years, he certainly isn’t showing it. Indeed, the stunt driver appears to have been splashing cash about recently, which is surprising because the Mail can reveal that his company, Collins AutoSport, has racked up a £1?million loss over the past five years. The tidy advance of about £250,000 he got from HarperCollins, which is publishing his autobiography later this month, should help. But company accounts show that despite Collins making cash injections of around £100,000 a year into his company, it has still required support from him. First, though, a few warm-up laps for Top Gear novices. The Stig is an anonymous racing driver on the popular television motoring show who test-drives cars, sets lap times and prepares celebrities for the show’s Star In A Reasonably Priced Car section — while dressed in a white racing suit and full-face helmet so that viewers never know his true identity. The name came from Clarkson and Top Gear producer Andy Wilman, who both attended the public school Repton where a ‘stig’ was the nickname given to all new boys. The Stig may be the butt of his fellow presenters’ jokes, but he has become an iconic figure on the show, with his anonymity a long-running theme. So secretive were the arrangements on set that Ben was even forced to eat at different times to the rest of the staff and always got to the studios wearing his helmet. But now, a bitter legal tussle over whether he should be allowed to publish his memoirs has resulted in his identity becoming public. So it’s Goodbye Stig, and hello to Ben Collins — a former Formula 3 racing driver, stunt man and, it transpires, a handsome father of three. Collins’ decision to write an autobiography may have lost him his job, but he is hoping, no doubt, that it will sell in its thousands, like those of his former colleagues, and generate new business opportunities in his own right. To that end, earlier this week, the Mail can reveal, Ben took on a new manager — Russ Lindsay. Russ, who is famous for being Caron Keating’s widower, is a top television talent manager, with clients including Ant and Dec and Davina McCall. And he looks after Piers Morgan — a sworn enemy of Jeremy Clarkson. Sources at Top Gear admit to being flabbergasted at the way Ben has ‘betrayed’ them. They only discovered he had written the autobiography — full of anecdotes about his time as The Stig — a few weeks ago, prompting the BBC to go to the High Court in a bid to have the book banned on the grounds of Ben’s contract of confidentiality (they failed). Collins was immediately sacked and the whole future of The Stig is now in the balance. ‘The secrecy of the identity of The Stig was sacrosanct,’ said one BBC source, angrily. ‘He has destroyed the whole mystique and everyone regards his behaviour as the ultimate betrayal.’ Presenter James May is equally furious. ‘The whole point of being The Stig is that you are nobody. The Stig is a character,’ he said. And when asked about future stunts for the show, he suggested ‘driving to The Stig’s house and nailing his head to the table ... [and] going and getting our overalls back because they’re not his — they’re ours’. What is all the more surprising is that Ben was regarded not only as a brilliant driver but a genuinely nice man to work with. ‘He was a benign chap, no trouble at all,’ the source continued. ‘Very little ego and easy to get on with. That was one of the reasons he did so well as The Stig. ‘He may not have been the best driver connected to the show, but he was brilliant at getting on with celebrities and teaching them how to drive the cheap cars fast but carefully.’ Photographers camped outside Ben’s house all this week would agree — every day, he has been providing them with coffee and umbrellas to shield from the rain as he feigned ­bemusement at the fuss. Stranger still to his former colleagues is that Ben had always been regarded as a team player. But then again, motor racing is about individual wins — and Ben has been a winner from an incredibly young age. Collins was born in Bristol, but spent the first ten years of his life in California where his father worked for a distribution company. He displayed a natural sporting ability from a young age. At five, he won his first three heats at a California state swimming competition, by the time he was seven he was training in the pool for 30 hours a week and at the age of nine he was an Olympic-standard swimmer. He moved back to the UK with his family when he was ten and his family settled in the picturesque village of Morchard Bishop in Devon. He attended Blundell’s, a public school with fees of up to £25,000 a year and whose alumni include science fiction writer John Wyndham, a former Archbishop of Canterbury and several Dukes and Lords. "

9/6/2010 5:30:53 PM

Quote :

"He became interested in motor racing when his father took him to the Silverstone race track for his 18th birthday. ‘Neither of us had any idea I would take to it so well,’ he later recalled. ‘At first I found it terrifying. But I just powered through and surprised myself when I got to the front of the pack, leaving the others behind.’ Soon he was hooked, becoming a professional driver, progressing into Formula 3 and, in 2001, becoming the fastest driver at Le Mans over a four-hour driving stint in heavy rain. He then tried his luck in America’s Nascar — the U.S. version of Formula One — becoming the first British driver in 30 years in the tournament. One school friend reveals: ‘When he went to Nascar, he seemed to think he had made it. At one point he was being offered a deal which would’ve earned him £10?million a year. Then it all went quiet and he came back to Britain.’ Not having made it in the top tier as a driver, he joined the SAS reservists in the 23 SAS regiment — effectively making him an elite form of Territorial soldier. He was trained in hand-to-hand combat, but was really there to pass on his driving skills to fellow trainees. (A keen marathon runner, he still regularly trains with the British Army.) Then came the call from the BBC. Collins started driving as the ‘white’ Stig in 2004 — wearing a white helmet and overalls — after the ‘black’ Stig, Perry McCarthy, outed himself in his book Flat Out, Flat Broke. It was no doubt McCarthy’s book that Collins had in mind when he decided to write his own memoirs. He should have plenty of anecdotes to tell — on Top Gear, he has driven with everyone from Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz to Ronnie Wood and Usain Bolt. Besides, he has seen all of his co-stars become millionaires and The Stig is one of the biggest characters in the show — yet none of the profits from Top Gear’s many spin-off ­products (often featuring The Stig) went to Ben. The one time he tried to make a little cash on the quiet, it all went terribly wrong. Last year he asked a picture gallery in Bristol to make 450 high-quality limited-edition prints of an image of The Stig taken at a salt lake in the United States. During the conversation, he let it slip that he was the man behind the visor. The BBC was soon on the case, demanding the gallery owners sign an agreement not to divulge his identity. Meanwhile, Ben suddenly found himself with a lot more mouths to feed. He married wife Georgina soon after joining Top Gear. As a member of the wealthy ‘Clifton set’ — Bristol’s answer to the Sloane Rangers — she may have expected to be kept in some style. In little more than three years she has provided him with three children: Izzie, three; Scarlet, 18 months; and the youngest — Cassius — who was born in the middle of the court case So it is no wonder that Ben felt forced to branch out — his salary as The Stig was probably no more than £70,000 a year. To that end, he has done everything he can to enhance his earnings. He filmed sequences as a stunt man for Disney’s film National Treasure 2 in 2007, when he was strapped to the roof of a car acting as a body double for Nicolas Cage. He also drove in some of the car chase sequences for the 2008 Bond movie Quantum Of Solace and then became a driver for an elite Australian touring car racing team. He had even started to make some headway in the world of show business, commentating on Nascar racing for SkySports and hosting a show on BBC3 called Xtreme Teen Drivers, which encourages speed freak teens to drive responsibly. But behind the scenes, it appears that his company was facing a few financial tight corners of its own. In accounts filed for the year ending December 2009, Collins AutoSport — a private company that lists Collins and his mother, Juliet, as principal shareholders — reported a profit for the year of £218,102, but also an accumulated ongoing trading loss of £1,078,035. Even with his Top Gear income and extra earnings over the past few years, that loss has been cut by less than a third — down from £1,552,715 in 2005. According to its website, Collins AutoSport provides driving displays, driving tuition, and motor racing ‘experience’ days. Collins has directorships with three other companies. Of these, one has yet to file accounts; another is dormant and the third reported a loss of £5,021 over the past year. Now that he has outed himself as The Stig, of course, his earnings should soar — not only from the book but also from speaking engagements. Collins has been on the books of City Speakers International — an agency which provides after-dinner speakers — for years, but his former fee of just a few thousand pounds will now soar into five figures. There is also talk of his own TV show. ‘For now, promoting his book is going to be top of his agenda, but he would love to do more stuff on television,’ said a TV source. ‘You never know, soon he could be rivalling his old Top Gear colleagues.’ One can only imagine what Clarkson et al would have to say about that."

Back Stig... dead

White Stig... dead

Now TG should bring an ex-Ferrari driver as a Red Stig!

9/6/2010 5:33:14 PM

Ben was outed last year IIRC.

9/6/2010 5:41:04 PM

Some say that he is a CIA experiment that went wrong, and that he only eats cheese.

9/6/2010 6:29:31 PM

Quote :

"But then again, motor racing is about individual wins"

Anyone who has been on a well-functioning race team knows this isn't true.

9/7/2010 12:15:14 PM

who the fuck cares.

[Edited on September 7, 2010 at 8:17 PM. Reason : psi]

9/7/2010 12:19:36 PM

I hear he invented blinds.

9/7/2010 12:36:35 PM

Quote :

"He then tried his luck in America’s Nascar — the U.S. version of Formula One"

9/7/2010 12:49:37 PM

Quote :

"So it is no wonder that Ben felt forced to branch out — his salary as The Stig was probably no more than £70,000 a year"

As prominent of a role as he played on that show it's surprising that he earned that little. ntm all the merchandising money. you almost can't blame the guy for doing what he's doing.

9/7/2010 12:57:23 PM

they had him on one of the episodes last season revealing who he was, didn't they?


or am I just psychic w/ those ESP dreams?

9/7/2010 4:19:53 PM

^ neither?

9/7/2010 4:42:08 PM

^^ It was a hoax.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6v15ssx3_Xc

9/7/2010 4:53:04 PM

Quote :

"who the fuck cares."

About 6% of the world's population, which by coincidence also happens to be the program's viewership.

Quote :

"As prominent of a role as he played on that show it's surprising that he earned that little. ntm all the merchandising money. you almost can't blame the guy for doing what he's doing."

Exactly my thoughts.

He is just 30 minutes away by train... perhaps I could go visit him!

9/7/2010 8:31:46 PM

perfect timing!

Ex-Top Gear employee cashing in on Stig-gate, selling autographed helmet

Quote :

"The Stig drama continues from the land of Top Gear. Former employee Sophia Vaizey was a production coordinator on the popular television show for 18 months. When she left, she was presented with a helmet worn by the Stig from 2002 to 2005, signed by Richard Hammond, members of the production crew and The Stig, himself. Now that the frenzy surrounding Top Gear's former wheelman has reached a fever pitch, Mrs. Vaizey is looking to cash in on her parting gift. Her family points out to her, perhaps quite wisely, that the helmet will likely be worth far less in 10 years than it is right now. Thus, she is bringing the iconic white brain bucket to market – Stig's helmet is heading to Gorringes Auctioneers on October 20th. We wouldn't be surprised if Jeremy Clarkson had some choice words for Sophia Vaizey. He recently laid into the Stig for following the money and Mrs. Vaizey appears to be going the same route. The helmet may have been a gift, but it's her gift and she has every right to make some money off of it. However, if that helmet were placed on our shelf, it would stay there... ...Unless the offer was really high."

9/14/2010 6:36:50 PM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmn-__6XQsM

Top Gear's "The Stig Farm"

hahahaha

11/7/2010 6:09:05 PM

^Pwnage.

British humor at it's finest.

11/7/2010 8:22:03 PM

^^ LOL @ 1:13

11/7/2010 9:31:32 PM

damn, BBC already pulled it off youtube

11/8/2010 10:00:54 AM

http://www.topgear.com/uk/car-news/stig-farm-exclusive-2010-11-5

11/8/2010 4:49:37 PM

Quote :

"British humour at it's finest."

FTFY

11/8/2010 6:06:43 PM

Quote :

" at it is finest"

11/8/2010 6:12:02 PM