Tyson Fury has recalled the moment he almost committed suicide during his battle with mental health problems.
Fury will fight WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder in Las Vegas on February 22 in a rematch of their drawn contest from 2018.
The 31-year-old was crowned heavyweight champion when he beat Wladimir Klitschko in Germany in 2015.
But after that his life spiralled out of control as he suffered from depression and battled alcohol and drug problems, while his weight ballooned to 28 stone.
Now Fury has opened up on how he almost drove his car into a bridge at high speed in a bid to kill himself, before realising he needed to turn his life around.
(Image: Getty Images)
“One day I woke up and thought ‘today’s the day I end it all’,” Fury says in an ITV documentary to be shown this week, in quotes reported by the Daily Mail.
“I was heading towards this bridge, I was going to smash the car into the bridge at very high speed, I just didn’t have the ambition to live any more.
“Before I got to the bridge I heard a voice saying ‘don’t do this, you’re going to destroy your family’s life’ and I immediately pulled the car over and that was the first time I thought, ‘right, now or never. I need to get well immediately’.”
Fury lost nine stone in less than two years before making his return to the ring in 2018.
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After comeback fights against Sefer Seferi and Francesco Pianeta he took on Wilder, surviving two knockdowns against ‘The Bronze Bomber’ as the fight was scored by judges as a draw.
Fury says he hasn’t completely conquered his mental health problems but is now much better equipped to combat them.
“I haven’t defeated mental health,” he said. “I still have bad days and good days, everybody does, but it never goes away.
“But I learn to maintain and that’s it. Thinking positive and being around positive people.”
