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  There was still talk about a rematch with Klitschko, and it turned out that this was part of the deal of me getting the shot at him in the first place. Word finally came through that the return fight was set for 9 July at the Manchester Arena. I was in the middle of a mental breakdown and yet I was still somehow expected to defend my title against Wladimir Klitschko.

  But the promotion machine began regardless. The first press conference was quite heated as Klitschko at one point told me to ‘f*** off’. I was putting on a good face and to the outside world I probably looked all right as I told him that I would knock him out second time around. But the signs were there as well that I wasn’t right. I was asked by one reporter about the legacy I could leave and my response said a lot about my state of mind. ‘Boxing doesn’t mean a lot to me because if it did I wouldn’t go into training camps five stone over-weight, I wouldn’t have eaten every pie in Lancashire and drunk every pint in the UK so clearly it doesn’t mean anything to me,’ I said. ‘Wladimir says he’s excited and he’s enjoying boxing, well I ain’t. I hate every second of it and I wish I wasn’t a boxer. I hate the training, I hate the boxing, I hate sitting here speaking to all you idiots. I’d rather be at home with the kids watching the television and eating chocolate and sweets. I hate boxing.’ If that wasn’t an insight into my mind at that time, I don’t know what would have been.

  I wasn’t the same person who went into the ring just five months earlier and dethroned the unified heavyweight champion of the world. Now I was sitting in front of the world’s media telling them that I hoped Klitschko would have the best training camp of his life and turn back the clock to his absolute peak so he could knock me out and I could retire. Then after stating that it was ‘a disgrace to call me an athlete’, I stood up and took off my T-shirt and told everyone to take a look at the undisputed champion of the world as I revealed my big belly. ‘Shame on you, my friend, for losing to a fat man,’ I taunted Klitschko. Anyone looking at that press conference could see that I wasn’t right – you didn’t have to be a psychiatrist to see there was something wrong, though those who were in attendance just seemed to think that it was a bit of a joke. If only they had known what was really going on in my head and how close I was to the edge.

  When we went into the training camp for the fight, my uncle Peter could see in my eyes that I didn’t have the same fire any more. We were based in Holland for the camp and I felt so low and I didn’t want to be there. There wasn’t a single night when I didn’t go to bed saying, ‘I’m gonna go home in the morning. This isn’t for me any more.’ The sparring was crazy because I was basically just letting guys hit me, hoping they would knock me out. There was simply no way I was going to be ready to face Klitschko. As it turned out I sustained an injured ankle during training and so the fight was rescheduled for October, which gave me a stay of execution. Another press conference was arranged but this time I didn’t even turn up. I eventually withdrew from the rematch, and I walked away from a big pay-day. I wasn’t mentally right to fight and I felt like I’d had enough of boxing, the boxing business and everything that went with it.

  Personally, I was in turmoil. I kept thinking that people expected me to be ‘that’ person who they saw on TV or on social media; that I was expected to switch it on and off when it suited everyone. They wanted to see the performing monkey, the persona I had built up. But you can’t be larger-than-life all the time; it sucks the energy out of you.

  One man who has been with me through thick and thin and who knows me better than most is my friend Dave Reay. He had seen the signs of mental illness long before this point, and he was there to witness one of my worst moments.

  Prior to the summer day in 2016 in Manchester when I got into my Ferrari ready to end it all, Dave had seen a glimpse of what was to come. It was late 2012 and he had tagged along with me to Birmingham to collect a lovely new Mercedes that I had bought. We were driving back along the motorway, going quite fast, and I suddenly turned to Dave and said, ‘You know what, I just feel like ramming this car into a brick wall.’ Dave didn’t know what to think and kind of nervously joked in reply, ‘Don’t do that, I’ve a son to bring up.’ But he could see that my thoughts were real.

  Later on, we talked about what I had said and I explained to him that there were some mornings when I would get up feeling all right and other times when I felt really low. Dave knew what to say that night. He had been with me throughout my career, he had seen me at my highest points, my lowest points and somewhere in between. He knew the pressure I felt and he was aware of the nature of the boxing world and all the whispers and rumours that swirled around. It’s an environment where everyone has an opinion about everyone else and if you listened to all of them it would melt your head. In Dave’s words, ‘The “he said, she said” world where everything is blown out of proportion is not easy to deal with.’ He has always read me very well and he has always been there for me as a friend. He was aware that I was making time for everybody else and none for myself.

  A few years later, Dave was also the one I had to call when I arguably came closest to being locked away for my own good. We had been out together looking at properties and I left to go on home, while he headed off for his dinner. But when I tried to drive off I simply couldn’t; I was unable to drive – I couldn’t function. I rang him in a state of panic and told him, ‘Dave, I can’t feel my arms. Can you come and help me, please?’ Due to the fact that I can be a wind-up merchant at times, he put the phone down thinking that I was just messing about. But I rang him back and shouted to him, ‘No, Dave, I’m serious. I can’t leave!’ I was disorientated and panicking so much that I felt like this was it, I was going to die. I eventually managed to get another driver to stop and got into his car and told him to take me straight to Dave’s house. When I got there Dave suggested we go for a walk down to the river but I was adamant: ‘No. Get me to the hospital,’ I said, because I had these deranged thoughts that Dave was going to murder me. He was my best friend but my mind was gone. When we got to the hospital my heart rate was 220 beats a minute. A normal heartbeat at rest is between 60 and 100. Dave rang my dad and brother Shane and they came as quickly as they could to the hospital. After doing what seemed like every possible test the doctor simply said I had gone through a panic attack and gave me some tablets to calm me down. Shane and my dad went back with me to Morecambe and stayed the night but I was still suffering badly, believing they were out to kill me and so was Paris. It was a horrible, horrible time for everybody.

  I was finally diagnosed in 2016 with having bipolar disorder and obsessive compulsive disorder, which both explained my mood swings as well as my obsessive and disturbing thoughts. This came after I’d had another breakdown around the time in October when I decided to give up my world titles rather than have them taken away from me, which was what was going to happen because I had been inactive as a fighter for so long. This was the last straw. Everything I had worked for was gone. Dave and I were in Blackpool at the time when it all came to a head. He had taken me out to my favourite fish and chip shop to cheer me up. But when the order arrived I turned it away and said the food was rotten. It was a small thing, and nothing as severe as when I had nearly taken my life earlier in the summer, or threatened to crash the car with Dave inside. But I had been acting very strangely for a number of days and I wasn’t making any sense. Dave could tell that I wasn’t mentally well. He told me to go and get help. I took his advice and did just that: the next day I went to see a doctor and got my diagnosis.

  During this time, as far as I was concerned, my boxing career was over. In a statement relayed through Mick Hennessy’s company, I said: ‘I won the titles in the ring and I believe that they should be lost in the ring, but I’m unable to defend at this time. I have taken the hard and emotional decision to now officially vacate my treasured world titles and wish the next-in-line contenders all the very best as I now enter another big challenge in my life which I know, like against Klitschko, I will conquer.’
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  Mick also made a statement, saying, ‘Out of respect for the governing bodies, the sport of boxing and the heavyweight division, Tyson has made the difficult decision to vacate the belts. This will also allow him the time and space to fully recover from his present condition without any undue pressure and with the expert medical attention he requires and his close family support.’

  But although I was starting to receive professional help, it was going to be a long road to recovery. By Christmas that year, I wasn’t only done with boxing, I was done with living. I was relieved to eventually see the back of 2016 but even when the new year began, things were not any better. I was waking up with tears running down my face, and although now I knew it was a disease, I still couldn’t understand why this was happening to me. My children were looking at me and asking Paris, ‘What’s wrong with Daddy?’ It’s heart-breaking when I think about it now. I was in a deep hole. I had ballooned up to 27 stone and thoughts of suicide were running through my brain. I needed help. I had been to a psychiatrist but even that wasn’t really working. For me, I was going to discover that only God could save me from complete and utter self-destruction.fn1

  CHAPTER NINE

  Into the Light

  The demons were in my bedroom again, staring at me, whispering to me. They were torturing me and wouldn’t let me sleep. They had me trapped; my mind was imprisoned. It was like I was living in a parallel universe. I was separated from the real world but there was a genuine sense that a demonic power had me locked in chains. I was hearing voices in my mind, and there was a conversation going on, arguing back and forth. I know it sounds unbelievable but that’s what I felt was actually happening to me. I couldn’t sleep properly for days at a time and the torture went on for months on end.

  This was my state of being during the blackest days of my battle with mental health. I could be fast asleep when I would suddenly hear a whistle that would wake me up. The next moment I’d see these demons at the window. I was terrified. I was the heavyweight champion of the world and I was scared for my life.

  When someone says they have mental health issues and they can’t explain why, or what they are properly going through, it is really important to just listen and have a sympathetic ear. For them, the torture is real even if it doesn’t sound plausible to the everyday person with a relatively normal life. This was the reality of my life; this was how I was going through agony on a daily basis and I just wanted to escape, to find a release. But it felt like there was no way out. I was cornered by something that was out of my control.

  I could normally handle anything that came my way. If there was an issue to deal with, I would handle it. I’m afraid of no man, but this was different. It was an awful place to be in with what felt like no solution, except to hope that I would die in my sleep and not have to wake up and face another morning of torture. At night I would often go into my garage and down some cans of beer to try and make sure I would get to sleep as quickly as possible, so I wouldn’t have to face the terror of the voices, and the faces. I just couldn’t handle it.

  By now I was 28 stone and heart-attack material. I would have given anything for a normal state of mind and a chance to return to the real world. The scary thing is, it could have been even worse. During this time, I spoke to a psychologist and explained to her about the voices that I had been hearing in my head. She asked me, ‘Were they good or were they bad voices?’ I said mixed. She went on to tell me that she had had a friend who had heard voices and had ended up setting himself on fire and killing himself. That’s the power of the mind; that’s how dark and frightening life can become for those struggling with these issues. It’s why I believe that more and more needs to be done by government and within society to offer help to those walking through these living nightmares.

  What the mind can do is barely believable, but on the other side of such darkness is the power to be released into the light. I desperately needed that moment to come, and thankfully it did come on 31 October 2017, Halloween night.

  At this point I had started doing some training on and off, but I was still the heaviest I had ever been, and I was still in a mess. I decided to go out to a fancy-dress party. It was going to be just another night, one where I would look to dull the pain of the misery I was in with alcohol and whatever else. Little did I know that dressing up in a glow-in-the-dark skeleton suit that I bought from the local dress-up shop would be the spark to take me back to boxing. It was so tight, as you can probably imagine with me being 28 stone, that when I put it on it felt like someone had just painted the design on to my body. I had the full skeleton mask on, glowing in the dark, looking like the biggest skeleton in history, with a pair of welly boots on my feet. When I got into town and went into the pub where the party was happening, I could hear everybody asking, ‘Is that Tyson Fury?’ I was so embarrassed that I didn’t take the mask off; I even drank through the mask. But after having only one beer I looked around the place and for the first time in a couple of years I thought to myself, ‘What on earth are you doing here? Is this what your life has come to?’

  I was standing there at twenty-nine years of age, like an old grandad with all these young people around me enjoying themselves. I looked ridiculous and I felt ridiculous. I knew I had to change. I looked at myself in a mirror and just wanted to go home. What had started out like many, many other nights, when I would look for any opportunity to ease the pain that I was going through, had turned into a rare evening when I finally had some clarity in my mind. Something had changed.

  I put the beer down, left the pub at eight o’clock and headed over to Dave Reay’s house. We had a drink and he said to me, ‘This has to stop.’ I told him that I would stop from that night onwards, and for the first time I meant it. I went home, and that in itself surprised Paris, because she had been resigned to thinking that this was another long night ahead, waiting for someone to drop me off in a terrible state. Around that time I had been going out and getting drunk every night, maybe not coming home for up to four days at a time. She would be ringing my dad and my brothers, frantically asking them if they knew where I was and if they could help to find me. There were times when she had had to go and drag me out of alleyways in the middle of the night because I was so smashed out of my head, or find me in a pub somewhere. I feel ashamed now thinking about what I put her through, and to realise that it was so bad that on more than one occasion Paris packed her suitcases and was ready to leave.

  No wife or partner should ever have go through that kind of turmoil but I was helpless. I couldn’t stop myself at that time because I was trapped in this dark vortex. To Paris it would come across as me being so selfish because I didn’t care about anyone else. I was telling her that I was sick of my life, that I wanted to die and that life meant nothing to me. And then she would be looking at our healthy kids and lovely home and thinking I should wise up and get over myself. I would tell her that I was going to stop drinking and stop going missing for days, and then the next week it would happen all over again. It came to a point where Paris couldn’t take it any more and on two or three occasions she told me she got to the door with the cases in her hands and the kids in the car with tears streaming down her face because she was at breaking point. But each time she pulled back from leaving me because she feared I would kill myself or choke on my own vomit – and, most importantly, because she still had that core love for me and felt she had to take care of me, even if it meant she had to go through unimaginable torment.

  I can’t really put into words how much it means to me that Paris stuck with me, and the pain it causes me when I look back to how low I brought her, because she didn’t deserve it. It’s just another awful example of the impact that depression can have, not just on the individual going through it, but for those family members around them.

  During this period, my dad and my brothers didn’t quite grasp how low I really was, and nobody knew that I was dabbling with cocaine to try and kill the depression. When my dad and Shane found out
, they went mad and rightly so because I let the family name down in a terrible way. Then one night when I walked through the door, Paris confronted me about it and at first I just stood there like a schoolboy caught with his hand in the cookie jar, insisting I hadn’t taken cocaine. Paris screamed at me, ‘Don’t treat me like I’m stupid!’ and I just confessed and begged for forgiveness and insisted it wouldn’t happen again. I had never gone near that kind of stuff my whole life but these were the depths I had fallen to. In Paris’s situation, I feel like most people would have packed their bags and just kept walking through the door without looking back, so I will always be grateful for the love and support that she gave me, especially when I didn’t deserve it.

  Back to the night of the Halloween party. After I had spoken to Dave Reay and returned home, much to Paris’s surprise, I walked upstairs into the bedroom and took off the costume. I stood there in my underpants and thought about all of my troubles and my behaviour. I knew I couldn’t continue the way I was going. In that moment I remembered reading in the biography of former world heavyweight champion George Foreman how he came to a point when he got down on his knees and cried out to God to help him. So in my bedroom that’s what I did. I cried my eyes out. The floor was wet with tears and sweat as I cried out for help. When I got back up I knew the comeback was on, even though there were so many negative things still around my life at that time, so many obstacles I had to face. But this was more than just about returning to boxing. This was about returning to sanity.