“UNLESS you live with us, I don’t think you can understand what really our life is . . . how mad it is,” says Tyson Fury’s wife Paris in their new Netflix reality show.
But for the millions of devoted fans of boxer the Gypsy King, At Home With The Furys offers a pretty good insight into their chaotic world, with six lively kids, during his short-lived retirement in 2022.
As the heavyweight champ, 34, battles with his hiatus from the ring, feeling lost and lacking purpose, Paris worries he will slip back into the depression and addiction that led him to the brink of suicide when he also quit the sport in 2019.
She says: “When he last stopped boxing, Tyson had an alcohol and drug addiction.
“He suffers from a few mental health problems. He’s got ADHD, depression, and it all spiralled out of control. We had a bad two years.
“There’s no point saying that won’t happen again because that’s the elephant in the room I think about.”
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Tyson’s bipolar disorder, diagnosed in 2017, means he has huge highs and deep lows and is prone to spontaneous acts — from booking a last-minute trip to Iceland to “pick a fight” with the world’s strongest man, to declaring he’s going to buy Blackpool airport and a second private jet.
Somehow long-suffering Paris, 32, pregnant with baby No7, manages to find a way through the mayhem he creates, while calmly running their Morecambe Bay household and bringing up their huge brood, Venezuela, 13, Prince John James, 11, Prince Tyson II, seven, Valencia, five, Prince Adonis Amaziah, four, and Athena, who turns two this week.
“Paris is amazing,” says Tyson. “We’ve been together 18 years and she’s put up with everything, all the good and bad times, the highs and lows. I wouldn’t be here without her. Where would I be? Dead, probably.”
Tyson and Paris, who come from a traveller background, met when he was 17 and she was 15.
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For their first date they watched King Kong at the cinema, and she recalls: “I kept thinking, ‘Is he gonna kiss me?’ I’d never been kissed.
“The movie went on for three hours and the moment King Kong climbs up the Empire State Building, that’s when Tyson decides to lean in and kiss me. It was the most awkward and embarrassing moment of my life.
“Then he says, ‘Are you going to go out with me? Are you going to be my girlfriend?’ So I said, ‘Yeah’.”
They married in 2008 and Tyson went on to become the undefeated heavyweight champion of the world, and now has an estimated £51million fortune.
But the nine-part Netflix series also shows his grounded side.
As he walks his dog he greets the many locals who say a friendly hello, posing happily for pictures and passing the time of day.
With a collection of supercars which includes a Ferrari and a £384,000 Rolls-Royce Phantom, the self-proclaimed “King of the Chavs” prefers to drive around in his £500 2006 VW Passat, which he tells Paris is “worth less than your shoes”.
And while Paris plans “Instagram-perfect” parties, including a lavish bash to mark Athena’s christening with a room full of pink balloons and a soft play area, the Gypsy King gets boxer shorts, socks and a £5 T-shirt for his 34th birthday.
“Money isn’t the be all and end all of everything,” he says.
“But for Paris it’s probably harder to go from lemonade to Champagne and back to lemonade again, rather than never having Champagne.”
‘Paris is amazing. Without her I’d be dead, probably’
Tyson is a mass of contradictions. A devoted dad who often declares “home is where the heart is and where the family is”, he rails against the mundane routine of everyday life.
Mucking in with household chores, he moans: “I’m the busiest retired man in the world.
“I’d rather get punched the f*** out of me by ten world champions than stay at home a week and do all these jobs.”
He is little help during the chaos before the morning school run, with Paris running around the house screaming: “Adonis, are you up yet?
"Venezuela, are you in the bathroom?” — and when he’s left to look after the kids while she takes a ten-hour round trip to appear on TV’s Loose Women, he takes them all camping without telling her.
Returning to an empty house, Paris fumes: “I’ve got a giant, 6ft 9in child. I don’t see the sense, the kids are in school tomorrow.
“That’s the problem with living with him, he’s so up and down, which I suppose is a definition of the bipolar.
“Instead of just being set in the routine of taking kids to school, which is normal, he’ll wake up and — bam! — we’re doing something else.
I’d rather get punched the f*** out of me by ten world champions than stay at home a week and do all these jobs.
“I try to go along with his mood swings and his little ideas but these sorts of things are a definite interference in life.”
She adds: “I’ll humour my husband and pretend this is normality when really, it is absolute madness.
“But if I don’t let him have his little moments he gets a bit down and depressed and he gets upset.”
In another impulsive moment, after goading strongman Thor Bjornsson over social media, Tyson flies to Iceland to challenge him to a fight.
But on landing, he discovers Thor is in Rome, sending Tyson into a downer and causing him to fall off the wagon and sink a few pints.
All this is witnessed by his dad John, who says: “When I’m looking at Tyson drinking I’m watching carefully because it caused so much trouble in the past. Last time Tyson retired he wasn’t in a good place and the fear of him going back there I couldn’t handle. I’d rather be dead than see him go down that road.”
The undefeated champ’s frustration at having handed in his title is at its most palpable when he watches Anthony Joshua’s 2022 bout with Ukraine’s Oleksandr Usyk.
‘Boxing is not a game, it’s very dangerous’
Dismissing the fight — which Usyk won — as “s***e”, he is pumped up as he posts on social media that he would “go over there and fight them both on the same night”, as worried Paris watches.
She says: “Boxing is not a game, it’s a very dangerous sport. One punch can cause life-devastating effects. He’s got nothing to prove.
“He’s never lost. He’s won all the belts. It wouldn’t be worth it to keep going in the ring and take those risks.”
Shortly after the bout, Tyson announced his return to the ring, taking on Derek Chisora in a December 2022 clash that saw him once again walk away the victor.
While Paris and Tyson come across as a solid couple, sometimes his behaviour clearly upsets her.
As he returns from an event in the Isle of Man, Paris, who has been busy making his favourite trifle, has his coat thrust at her as he grunts that he’s going to see his dog, leaving her ranting: “I feel like putting the trifle over his head.”
After arranging a romantic picnic and boat trip on a Scottish loch, he leaves her stranded in a tiny dinghy because he is annoyed, and he walks out when Athena’s christening party is in full swing, telling his wife he’s going to walk the dog.
“When I’m low, Paris gets the brunt of it,” he says. “I don’t feel good about that.”
Paris adds: “Tyson’s moods are on a regular up and down. It is hard to deal with on a day-to-day basis.
“It does get on our nerves but I love him and I’m going to support him and help him.”
But she admits she wanted to flee the marriage when his addiction and depression were at their worst.
I’ve got a giant, 6ft 9in child. I’ll humour my husband and pretend this is normality when really, this is absolute madness.
She says: “I don’t know what is worse, Tyson coming out of retirement and risking his physical health or staying in retirement and risking his mental health, because we’ve been at the bottom before. Tyson was going through the darkest time of his life.
“He got massively overweight. The only thing he was interested in was lying in bed most of the day and drinking through the night.
“At that point I really wanted to leave. But I thought if I left him, Tyson would go through with what he kept saying he wanted to do, which was kill himself.”
Tyson has always been open about his fragile mental health and admits his 2019 retirement sent him to the brink.
He says: “I’ve had a lot of dark moments thinking, ‘You’re going to end up in a padded room. You’ve lost your mind’.
“You have thoughts of not wanting to live any more, even though you’ve got a family and kids and everything to live for.
“Exercise for me is the key. The moment I stop exercising I go straight back to Hotel California — you can check out any time you want but you can never leave.
“That’s mental health. It’s not IF you get unwell again, it’s when.”
Dad John, a former boxer, agrees with Tyson’s view that regular exercise is the only thing that keeps mental illness at bay.
He adds: “If I don’t train, I can’t function, I can’t think straight.
“I’ve had it all my life. When I was younger we didn’t know anything about it. We thought a kick up the backside would sort it out.
“In Tyson’s case, you could have all the fame or fortune the world has got to offer. When mental health kicks in, you can still slip 100 miles an hour to a dark place.”
- At Home With The Furys is released on Netflix on August 16.
Nice thing in a small package
THE touching moment Tommy Fury and Molly-Mae Hague tell his brother Tyson and Paris they are expecting a baby is caught on camera in the reality show.
And Tommy reveals the sweet way the influencer broke the news to him.
“I came home and she had a little parcel and I thought it was a designer T-shirt or something,” he tells Tyson.
“I thought, ‘That’s nice’ and I opened it up and it was a little baby-gro. That was it, it was a shock.”
The couple, who met in Love Island in 2019 and had baby Bambi in January, also allowed cameras into their home for the documentary.
Molly-Mae tells about joining the Fury family and how they have welcomed her.
“I am the only non-traveller ‘wife’ but I’ve never felt out of place,” she says.
“They’ve been so lovely to me and made me feel part of the family straight away.”
Paris has nothing but praise for the 24-year-old and says she knows how daunting it can be to fit in. “Molly is a lovely girl,” she says.
“Coming into the Fury family is intimidating because there are 6ft 9in giants walking around like it’s normal.
“When I met Tyson they were all welcoming and I think if you come into the family and just embrace it, roll with it, you’ll get along fine.”
She adds: “Chaos is a way of life for the Fury family. I don’t think you can impose order.”
However, the different upbringings between the Love Island sweethearts is clear when they discuss the number of kids they want, with Tommy saying he wants ten and Molly-Mae drawing the line at three.
She also worries about the differences ahead when it comes to raising her daughter, with Tommy insisting that, like Tyson’s children, they will be raised in the “traditional” traveller way.
While Tyson’s oldest Venezuela left school at 11, as is customary in the community, Molly-Mae is keen for Bambi to complete her formal education.
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“With Tommy being raised a traveller, he’s had a conversation about our child not going to school but that’s non-optional,” she says.
“I’ve been raised differently to that and there’s no question of our child not going to school. I just hope that doesn’t cause too many rifts.”
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