I’m a Celeb’s Barry McGuigan discusses daughter’s tragic death
Barry McGuigan has opened up about the heartbreaking death of his daughter.
The former professional boxer is currently taking part in I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here, where he spoke out about his tragic loss.
Barry’s daughter was first diagnosed with leukaemia when she was a young girl and after two years of battling the disease, she was cleared.
Danika was later diagnosed with cancer for a second time, Stage 4 bowel cancer, and sadly passed away at the age of 33 in 2019.
During last night’s episode of I’m a Celeb, Barry emotionally opened up to his other campmates about his daughter’s passing.
He explained, “I used to go to church a lot but then after my daughter, just you know, not as much. I used to go incessantly”.
“She had leukaemia. When I was making the movie The Boxer with Daniel Day Lewis, three weeks from the end I had to leave because she’d been diagnosed with leukaemia”.
“They thought she wasn’t going to get better but she did, she fought back and she won it.. She had two years of chemo, she was good, she came back”, he revealed before bursting into tears.
Barry’s campmates then rallied around the boxer to comfort him as N-Dubz star Tulisa Contostavlos stated, “You’re a man going through pain and you’re vulnerable about it, that takes strength… There is no rules to grieving”,
After other famous faces shared their support with McGuigan, Tulisa added, “It’s a reflection of your love, like the extent that you’re holding onto a memory. That doesn’t mean that you’re weak, it means, ‘This is how much I love my daughter and I’m grieving’”.
The boxing pro went on to confess, “I’ve tried to talk about it and no matter what I do, it just all comes back. Those horrible weeks in the hospital, just watching her, it was shocking”.
While the campmates hugged Barry and also shed tears, he added, “You’re all so lovely, I really appreciate it”.
Oti then headed to the Bush Telegraph where she tearfully admitted, “I don’t think you will ever get over things like that. I don’t think you ever get over losing someone”.
“You always just find a way to push it to the back and you know, for a big, strong guy, I also admire that he is brave enough to just let it go”.
