Actress Minnie Driver said she has been involved in a ‘really bad’ car accident while driving on a country road in France with her friend Ben Homewood in a Kia EV2.
Appearing in an Instagram video on Thursday, an emotional Minnie, 56, was wearing a neck brace and said she is ‘so grateful to be alive’ following the crash.
Minnie said the accident happened when another car failed to stop while driving at speed at an intersection, adding that the smash was ‘not their fault.’
The star then showed a picture of the car wreckage and an image of herself walking out of the hospital with her friend.
Minnie said: ‘I am actually back in London. I’m sorry about the filter I’ve put on this, but honestly without it, I just look appalling. Even the dog wouldn’t look at me.
Emotional Minnie Driver revealed she was involved in a ‘bad car accident’ in France and said in a video post on Instagram on Thursday that she is ‘so grateful to be alive’
She showed a picture of the car wreckage and said the design of the Kia EV2 her friend was driving and the 360 degree airbags are the reason why she is alive
‘I got into a really bad car accident a few days ago, with my friend Ben and we somehow walked out of it. Well we didn’t walk out of it, we crawled out of it, but we did get out of it alive.’
Breaking down, she said. ‘To be clear, it was not our fault. A car didn’t stop at an intersection and was going at speed and we just T-boned it.
‘I’m fine. I’ve got a sprained neck and I’m really in shock and cry all the time, but I’m going to heal.
‘The reason that I’m not dead Is the car that we were driving. We were in this tiny little Kia EV2. I’ve never been in a crash before, but the 360 degree airbags are what saved our lives.
She added: ‘The fact that the entire car didn’t concertina and crush us is down to the design of that car, which is frankly astonishing.
‘This is categorically not a car ad. Can you imagine? I wnat to celebrate that car. I’m a Mini driver. Pun intended. I need to celebrate the car that saved us. We’ve got families and people that love us. And I am so grateful to be alive.
‘So Kia, you are a baller car company. You’re amazing. And thanks very much from me and my mate Ben Homewood. And my family and the people who love me.’
Minnie was in the car with her actor friend Ben Homewood
Ben is best known starring in Missions, Two Is a Family and National Treasure: Book of Secrets
Back in March, Minnie has lifted the lid on her unconventional arrangement with her fiancé Addison O’Dea, revealing they don’t live together but that it’s been ‘so freeing’ for their seven-year relationship
She wrote in the comments: ‘Shout out to the van driver who stopped and helped us before the ambulances arrived.
‘Special mention to the car who slowed down, took in the scene and drove off without stopping. I guess this is the Dao of the world, the light and the dark.
‘My brain keeps replaying the crash which is very hard but seems to be a necessary part of processing.
‘Weeping too, feels good and helpful. Thank you to my friends, my family, all the people at work and especially my friend Ben and his family. I love you.’
Back in March, Minnie lifted the lid on her unconventional arrangement with her fiancé Addison O’Dea, revealing they don’t live together but that it’s been ‘so freeing’ for their seven-year relationship.
The Emily in Paris star made the candid confession, crediting the American filmmaker, 46, with teaching her to ’embrace’ their unorthodox setup which sees them ‘constantly in different places’.
‘I found my guy, my love, Addison. He’s Gemini and as unconventional and as embracing of the lack of need for a status quo… we define what that is,’ Minnie explained on The Spirit Daughter podcast.
‘That has been so freeing to be with someone for whom the weird idiosyncrasies were not a problem at all, but rather to be embraced and supported.’
Speaking about long-distance relationships, the British-American actress shared: ‘That’s exactly how we live. Genuinely, that is how it is – we are constantly in different places and he has coached me and how it is okay. I love that.
‘I think because other people’s reaction to it was always: this is a huge problem that you want things to be this way, or that this is the way your life naturally unfolds – the resistance to that, I always thought was wrong.
The actress, who dated Matt Damon during the filming of Good Will Hunting for a year until 1998, and was briefly engaged to Josh Brolin in 2001, continued: ‘I was worried and panicked that that would be problematic and it was for lots of people.
‘For Addison, he just sees it as how things work most fluidly – and most fluidly for everybody. There’s an ease within that. So it’s amazing.
‘He really has taught me to embrace that my natural feeling for things to be completely and utterly unconventional and people sleeping in different rooms, in different houses in different places, and there being no punishment or sadness around any of that, but just an embracing of the is-ness of it all.’
Minnie revealed last year that she relocated back to London in 2024 after 27 years in California because her son Henry, 17, whom she shares with TV writer Timothy J Lea, ‘begged’ her to move so he could attend school with his cousins and have a ‘normal life’ after struggling with Zoom school during the pandemic.
The actress admitted she found the first two years ‘really difficult’ but now loves being back in the UK, where Henry attends the same boarding school she once did.
