I'm A Celeb's towering Tony Bellew's height as boxer deals with family trauma
Tony Bellew's jungle experience has been tinged with real sadness after his beloved nan Rose passed away last week, just 24 hours after he signed his I'm A Celebrity contract.
The former boxing champion will fly home to bury his "second mum" next month and viewers are watching him cope with the trauma in the Australian outback. Family is clearly so important to the 6ft 3ins sports star, who hung up his gloves following his defeat to Oleksandr Usyk in 2018.
The towering fighter is a father-of-three and we've already seen how tough life is for him to be so far away from home. Not only is the 40-year-old missing his kids Corey, Cobey and Carter, but he knows he is unable to support his grieving relatives. They need some comfort following the death of Rose, 97, who had been looking forward to watching him compete on the show.
He is determined to enjoy his jungle adventure but wishes he was at home supporting his family (ITV/REX/Shutterstock)Tony said he had only committed to making the trip out to Australia once he confirmed that he could be home in time for her funeral. He said: "I signed the day before she passed away, so there was no going back then. If I sign something, I honour my agreement. In an ideal world I would have left it but I had signed. I was coming, so I am here.
"B ut I am going back to bury her on the 15th. I was going to renegade if I couldn't move the burial date. I can bury her now when I get back." Paying tribute to Rose, who he described as "the boss of the house" on social media, he added: "She was in a home. And she told my mum 'I'll be able to watch that [I'm A Celeb] every night'.
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"So yeah, it is what it is. She'll be watching, you know, from wherever she is and whatever she's doing. She was a diamond of an old lady. She was wonderful. "I come from a single parent household, my dad left when I was 10. So when you come from where I come from, your Nan helps around a lot because your mother goes to work.
Tony and Frankie Dettori are little and large in the camp! (ITV)"So your nan is your second mum. She was a lovely, lovely woman, and she had the heart of gold, so she'll be missed by all of us. Me and my brothers and my mother and my dad by the way as well." The former cruiserweight world champion, who also twice defeated David Haye, said he signed up for the show mainly to give his kids some memories as fun as they normally watch the ITV series at home in Liverpool.
He explained his wife Rachael also fancied a trip to Australia with their three sons as he said: "They'll be here having an absolute scream while I'm sitting there starving". Diehard Everton fan Toni does not class himself as famous and despite his past history in the ring, he has no plans for a huge entrance or for bust ups when he arrives in camp this week.
This isn't the athlete's first dabble in reality TV - he appeared on Channel 4's SAS: Who Dares Wins in 2020. The brutal show, which was then led by ex-Special Forces soldier Ant Middleton, saw Tony confront his demons and speak candidly about the explosive rage inside him which made him fear he would end up in jail like his father. "In the past I've done some things I'm not very proud of," he said. "I miss having a fight. I miss punching people in the face, if I'm totally honest."
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