Tyson Fury faced the heartbreak of losing his unborn child just a day before his epic showdown with Oleksandr Usyk for the undisputed heavyweight title. At 36, the Gypsy King, who shares seven kids with his wife Paris, saw his undefeated streak and title slip away to Usyk after a nail-biting bout in May.
Paris, aged 34, was six months into her pregnancy when she had already decided not to be at ringside in Riyadh due to high blood pressure issues. However, Fury stepped into the ring carrying the heavy burden, suspecting that his wife, whom he’s been with for 16 years, had miscarried back home in Morecambe.
“When she said she couldn’t come over, I knew there was a problem,” Fury disclosed. “She usually comes out on fight week but she said she had high blood pressure.”
He continued: “I knew she wasn’t coming over on the Friday and [Saudi boxing chief] Turki Alalshikh offered us a private jet to get around the high blood pressure and said he would bring the doctor with her.
“She said she couldn’t come and I asked her what was up and asked her to tell me but she wouldn’t. So I knew, I knew there was a problem. I said to my brother, ‘She’s lost that baby’. She never told me she had lost the baby, but I knew.
(Image: INSTAGRAM/parisfury1)
“I am not making excuses but she was six months pregnant; it’s not like a small miscarriage at the beginning, you have to physically give birth to a dead child, on your own, while your husband is in a foreign country. I could not be there for her in that moment and that is tough for me.
“To go through that on your own, that isn’t good. I have been with the woman for longer than I wasn’t with her, so it is hard that I couldn’t be there with her in that time. When I got back I got the inevitable confirmation that it was gone but she kept it to herself.”, reports the Mirror.
Paris previously gave birth to a stillborn baby in 2014 and suffered a miscarriage when she was eight-weeks pregnant four years later. She was told she had miscarried the same day her husband made his boxing comeback after almost three years out of the ring – and didn’t tell him until after the final bell.
But Fury, who will attempt to avenge his defeat by Usyk in their rematch on December 21, insists his performance was not affected by his family’s latest tragedy.
He said: “To go through that on your own, that isn’t good, but it’s not an excuse – hell no. I am a man of honour and I do what I have to do when I am in there. I don’t think about that sort of stuff when I am in the fight. Nothing outside the ring matters, there is no emotion; you think about all that stuff afterwards. Will we have any more kids? I don’t know if she’s back to normal from that. It was only a few months ago and it takes a lot of getting over.”