Tyson Fury during a press conference at the Guildhall, London. Photo / Getty Images
Content warning: This article refers to miscarriage and stillbirth.
Tyson Fury has revealed he was struck by personal tragedy on the eve of his fight with Oleksandr Usyk.
Fury’s wife Paris was six months pregnant with their eighth child, a boy, but suffered a miscarriage the day before he lost his WBC world heavyweight title to Usyk in Saudi Arabia in May.
Speaking on the subject for the first time, an anguished Fury told how he was shielded from the news ahead of his attempt to become the division’s first undisputed champion for 24 years.
But he feared the worst when he learned Paris was too ill to attend the fight in Riyadh.
Asked if he was planning on having any more children, the 36-year-old replied: “Never say never. I only have seven.
“The one that she was having, she lost that on the Friday of the fight.
“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. To go through that on your own isn’t good.
“I could not be there for her in that moment. And that’s tough for me. I have been with the woman for longer than I wasn’t with her, so it’s hard that I couldn’t be there with her in that time.
“When she said she couldn’t come over, I knew there was a problem. She usually comes out on fight week but she said she had high blood pressure.
“Turki Alalshikh (chairman of Saudi’s General Entertainment Authority) offered us a private jet to get around the high blood pressure and said she could bring the doctor with her.
“She said she couldn’t come. I asked her what was up and asked her to tell me, but she wouldn’t. So I knew, 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.
“When I got back I got the inevitable confirmation that it was gone, but she had kept it to herself.”
Fury is insistent the unfolding tragedy had no bearing on his clash with Usyk, a fight he believes he won but which was awarded to the Ukrainian by split decision.
The rivals will meet again on December 21 but without the IBF belt at stake after Usyk chose to relinquish it rather than make a mandatory defence. Daniel Dubois is now the IBF champion.
“It’s not an excuse, hell no. I am a man of honour. I do what I have to do when I am in there,” he said.
“I don’t think about that sort of stuff when I am in that fight. Nothing outside the ring matters, there is no emotion. You think about all that stuff afterwards.
“We have had miscarriages before. It happens. 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. It takes a lot of getting over.
“But no more of this morbid stuff now because I’ll break down in tears.”
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