{"id":55937,"date":"2025-08-09T02:26:12","date_gmt":"2025-08-09T02:26:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/55937\/"},"modified":"2025-08-09T02:26:12","modified_gmt":"2025-08-09T02:26:12","slug":"10-million-love-island-star-who-almost-lost-it-all","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/55937\/","title":{"rendered":"\u00a310 million Love Island star who almost lost it all"},"content":{"rendered":"

At the end of 2019, Tommy Fury \u2014 professional boxer, half-brother of Tyson, reality TV star \u2014 was living \u201cdreams. Fantastic! Better than fantastic!\u201d That summer, aged 20, he\u2019d appeared as a contestant on Love Island<\/a> because, \u201cMy fight had got cancelled. I could do with a holiday. I haven\u2019t got money to go. Don\u2019t forget \u2014 I\u2019m not Bill Gates\u2019s son. I don\u2019t come from millions of pounds.\u201d Once there, he\u2019d met and fallen in love with a fellow contestant, fashion influencer Molly-Mae Hague<\/a>. The two made it to the final of the dating show, ending up in second place, then left Love Island to find themselves well-defined pectoral muscle deep in celebrity and lucrative financial opportunities. Fury and Hague cashed in, literally and figuratively \u2014 Hague signed, among other things, a \u00a3500,000 deal with fast fashion outlet PrettyLittleThing<\/a> \u2014 while sustaining their love affair.<\/p>\n

Fury \u2014 unbeaten at the time he went on Love Island \u2014 resuscitated his boxing career in December 2019, fighting, and beating, Przemyslaw Binienda. During that fight, he injured his hand \u2014 catastrophically, as it would turn out. <\/p>\n

Can he remember the exact punch? \u201cI felt it. I was in bad pain. But when you\u2019re in front of 20,000 people and you\u2019re amped up\u2026 I mean, that was the punch that won me the fight.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Tommy<\/p>\n

With Molly-Mae Hague in Love Island, 2019<\/p>\n

SHUTTERSTOCK<\/p>\n

When he took his gloves off in the dressing room and looked at his hand, he realised he\u2019d done something serious. \u201cMy hand was like a balloon. Next day, I went to the best hand surgeon in the UK and he told me that I needed surgery, there and then.\u201d But Fury \u2014 still only 20 and unaware that an injury could be anything other than something you shake off \u2014 did not have surgery immediately. Instead, he \u201cbrushed through it, kept fighting, [cortisone] injection after injection\u201d.<\/p>\n

In 2023, having fought and beaten the YouTube stars Jake Paul<\/a> then KSI<\/a>, and having felt pain during that latter fight despite three cortisone injections, Fury decided he must finally have the surgery. At which point Fury\u2019s world \u2014 his dream life, his \u201cbetter than fantastic\u201d life \u2014 came crashing down.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah.\u201d<\/p>\n

You fell apart \u2014 is that fair to say?<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, completely. I woke up one morning. I remember it clear as day. I had the surgery, and I woke up in the hospital bed, didn\u2019t know where I was, from all the medication. I looked down and my hand was all taped up, in a cast, and I thought, \u2018Yikes.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

\"Tommy<\/p>\n

Fury fighting Jake Paul at the Diriyah Arena in Riyadh in February, 2023<\/p>\n

FRANCOIS NEL\/GETTY<\/p>\n

Unable to train, unable to box, unable to do the one thing that had anchored him and driven him through life to that point, Fury started drinking. Hard, constantly, to a point where, \u201cI didn\u2019t even recognise myself. I\u2019m an athlete. I pride myself on being in shape. I pride myself on being a superman, you know. I just didn\u2019t recognise that person that I was. I was fat. I had no grip strength. I was eating rubbish. I\u2019d walk down the road and you wouldn\u2019t even think I was a boxer. I lost everything. Boxing gave me this identity as a superman, an alpha male, and when I couldn\u2019t do that any more, I didn\u2019t feel like I was an alpha male. I didn\u2019t feel like I was The Man \u2014 everything went with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEverything\u201d included Molly-Mae Hague and Bambi, the daughter they\u2019d had 18 months earlier in January 2023, who promptly moved out.<\/p>\n

Fury sank as low as he could possibly go, drinking \u201cin the days, in the evenings. Excessively. A lot.\u201d He \u201cwoke up crying most days\u201d. He rattled around the big, beautiful family home he and Hague had bought together, desperately lonely. \u201cI was. Completely.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2022 Read more boxing stories<\/a><\/p>\n

Which was when a BBC documentary crew moved in. Tommy: The Good. The Bad. The Fury is the result, a series which tracks Fury\u2019s efforts to get his boxing career \u2014 and by extension, his family \u2014 back. \u201cGet myself back. Because I wasn\u2019t who I am.\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve only seen the first episode, but it\u2019s a sweet, painful watch \u2014 the shiny, smiley, professionally shallow, endlessly glamorous reality TV star reduced to a state of screaming vulnerability in the mausoleum of the house he once shared with his child and partner. Cooking eggs. Eyes lighting up when he FaceTimes his kid to say, \u201cNight night,\u201d flicking back to dull and haunted the very moment the call ends. You watch it and you really want things to work out for Fury \u2014 even though those of us invested in his \u201cstory\u201d (which I am, with no apology) sort of already know. They have. They do.<\/p>\n

Neither Fury nor Hague has confirmed it \u2014 I\u2019m assuming the big reveal on their rapprochement is exclusive to either Fury\u2019s BBC documentary or season two of Hague\u2019s Prime Video show, Behind It All<\/a>. But the couple and their child keep being spotted out and about, looking very together again, very rapproched.<\/p>\n

I am, of course, going to ask Fury all about that.<\/p>\n

Fury and I meet at the Moss Side Amateur Boxing Club in Manchester, a proud, noble, smelly, traditional boxing gym built by the Moss Side community from the ruins of the 1981 riots. It has produced multiple champions.<\/p>\n

Fury turns up a little late \u2014 something went wrong with his car. He\u2019s 26 years old, handsome and fragrant, piercingly twinkly-eyed and hench. His out of shape, miserable drinking era is, apparently, behind him. He asks for water, and tells me he\u2019s trying to drink six litres a day as a detox.<\/p>\n

\"Portrait<\/p>\n

\u201cI went to the boxing gym one day and never came out of it. All I wanted to do was fight. There\u2019s just nothing like it\u201d<\/p>\n

DAN KENNEDY FOR THE TIMES MAGAZINE. VEST, MARKS &AMP; SPENCER<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t you just spend your whole time peeing, I ask. He doesn\u2019t dignify that with an answer. \u201cWater is the number one thing for the body,\u201d he replies. I\u2019d heard it was quite good for you, I say. \u201cPeople don\u2019t drink enough of it.\u201d He chugs some in front of me, then chugs an entire bottle of something electrolyte-y as a chaser, sucking the air out of the plastic bottle in his enthusiasm. He grins at me, when he finishes.<\/p>\n

Tommy Fury grew up<\/a> \u201cten minutes from here\u201d. His father, John Fury, is of Irish Traveller descent, a boxer himself, also father \u2014 from his first marriage, with Amber Fury \u2014 to former heavyweight champion Tyson<\/a>. Tommy Fury\u2019s mother, Chantal, is a podiatrist; his brother Roman \u2014 also a boxer \u2014 is older by two years.<\/p>\n

What was childhood like?<\/p>\n

\u2022 Read more TV reviews, guides about what to watch and interviews<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cBoxing family. Obviously, my dad went to jail for a long time, when I was eight or nine.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2011, John Fury was sentenced to 11 years for forcing his fingers into another man\u2019s eyes during a fight at a car auction.<\/p>\n

What are Fury\u2019s memories of that?<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t really know what was going on. One day, my dad just wasn\u2019t coming home.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chantal told Fury John was \u201c \u2018working away\u2019. That was the line, for about three years of the sentence.\u201d When did Fury realise that wasn\u2019t entirely true? \u201cWhen I went to the jail. Ha!\u201d<\/p>\n

I assume Fury could box before he could walk, that his childhood \u2014 dominated by Tyson\u2019s success \u2014 was devoted to it\u2026 But I\u2019m wrong. \u201cI was going to be a rugby player. I had trials for Lancashire. I played for the \u2018gifted and talented\u2019 rugby league squad. But then, around 14 or 15 years old, it completely changed.<\/p>\n

\u201cI went to the boxing gym one day, and never came out of it. I didn\u2019t want to play rugby again \u2014 all I wanted to do was fight. There\u2019s just nothing like it. When you and another person are in that ring, trying to shut off each other\u2019s lights\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

I ask him when he realised he was good at boxing \u2014 but he says he didn\u2019t. He isn\u2019t. \u201cI\u2019m not the best boxer out there; I\u2019m not even a great boxer.\u201d What he is, he says, is disciplined and determined. He doesn\u2019t accept a \u201cno\u201d, he says. \u201cLike, everyone telling me, \u2018We\u2019ve already got a star in the family. Tyson<\/a> is the guy! Leave it alone.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

\"NINTCHDBPICT001013781344\"<\/p>\n

\u201cI was drinking to suppress certain feelings. If I had one drink, I\u2019d have a hundred\u201d<\/p>\n

DAN KENNEDY FOR THE TIMES MAGAZINE. SUIT, ASOS. SHIRT, PHIX. POCKET SQUARE, MOSS<\/p>\n

You\u2019re a handsome man, I tell him. Weren\u2019t you worried about getting your face mangled? Not at all, he says. He\u2019s never thought of himself as handsome.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo! I don\u2019t understand it. When I went on Love Island, seeing all these comments afterwards when people started saying it, I\u2019d be like, \u2018Who are they looking at?\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

The decision to go on Love Island strikes me as a bit odd, I tell him, given that Fury\u2019s boxing career was taking off. He explains that a fight in summer 2019 had been cancelled \u2014 and he\u2019d wanted that free holiday. He didn\u2019t think it would affect his standing in the boxing community, because he didn\u2019t think he\u2019d be in the show for longer than a few days.<\/p>\n

How did it happen at all, I ask. \u201cI spoke to a guy,\u201d he says, with the opaqueness of a retired MI5 agent recollecting getting tapped up at Cambridge. Did he watch the show beforehand? \u201cNo. I never even watched my own series back. I went into it blind. I didn\u2019t know what it was; I didn\u2019t know what it bought; I didn\u2019t know the attention that it had. I packed two pairs of trainers, four pairs of shorts and two T-shirts. You can ask anybody from the villa, I was borrowing everybody\u2019s clothes. I just didn\u2019t know what was going on. I was clueless.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Tyson<\/p>\n

Tommy with his half-brother Tyson Fury<\/p>\n

PA<\/p>\n

Falling in love was not on Fury\u2019s agenda either \u2014 but then, in his first week, Molly-Mae Hague entered the villa (as a \u201cbombshell\u201d, a contestant designed to cause ructions).<\/p>\n

Was it love at first sight?<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah. As soon as I saw her, it was game over. She\u2019s the most beautiful girl I\u2019ve ever seen in my life. Inside and out. She is the best thing that\u2019s ever happened to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Did she feel the same?<\/p>\n

\u201cShe probably thought, \u2018Who is this guy? What is he doing near me?\u2019 I think if I was going on a date with myself, I\u2019d be a bit like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The expression on Fury\u2019s face is, at this juncture, so dopily smitten, so very not filled with the anguish of a man trying to win his true love back around \u2014 I have to ask if they\u2019re back together.<\/p>\n

\"Tommy<\/p>\n

Fury on Love Island, aged 20<\/p>\n

SHUTTERSTOCK<\/p>\n

Hague left Fury in 2024<\/a>, around five months after Fury\u2019s hand surgery, amid his drinking. (He insists it wasn\u2019t alcoholism, though it sounds like it to me. \u201cI was drinking to suppress certain feelings,\u201d he tells me, and, \u201cWhen I started, if I had one drink, I\u2019d have a hundred.\u201d)<\/p>\n

In addition to that, the internet swirled with rumours of Fury\u2019s infidelity \u2014 rumours Fury vehemently denies.<\/p>\n

Those cheating rumours must have hurt?<\/p>\n

\u201cIt didn\u2019t hurt me because I knew it was all bollocks. People can think whatever they want about me. I don\u2019t care. When I wake up in the morning and I\u2019ve got my missus there and I\u2019ve got my baby in the next room, I\u2019ve got money in the bank and I\u2019m fit and well, why have I got time to worry about what someone is going to comment on the bottom of a picture?\u201d<\/p>\n

OK, so you are back together, I say.<\/p>\n

Fury makes a gleeful show of sealing his lips together.<\/p>\n

You so obviously are!<\/p>\n

Fury smiles in a way I suspect he hopes passes for enigmatic.<\/p>\n

He\u2019d always wanted to be a father, he tells me. Bambi Fury is now two and a half and being her dad is, Fury says, \u201cthe best thing, the best title. I could be world heavyweight champion, it will not even come close. That baby is everything.\u201d He\u2019d love to have more kids. \u201cObviously, I\u2019m not the one giving birth. But all I ever wanted to do from when I was a young boy, I just wanted to have a family and do my boxing and look after them. My family is everything. I don\u2019t care what happens in my life. I don\u2019t care if boxing goes. Because if it were to happen again, I\u2019ve got my family.\u201d<\/p>\n

But when it went before, you lost them.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah. I was so low. I could hear things echoing. I was alone. I wouldn\u2019t go down that road [again].\u201d<\/p>\n

He may not have to risk it \u2014 not for a while, anyway. Fury\u2019s hand is healed, he can fight again, at the level he did before the injury.<\/p>\n

Part of the BBC documentary\u2019s arc is the build-up to a fight with Darren Till, scheduled for the start of 2025, but Fury pulled out of it because\u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cIt wasn\u2019t a pull-out! It was due to a gentleman who I\u2019m not even going to mention not being able to do business. So Darren Till can go and swivel.\u201d<\/p>\n

In May this year, Fury beat Kenan Hanjalic in Budapest, thereby marking his official comeback.<\/p>\n

I ask Fury if he\u2019d let his daughter watch him fight. \u201cShe watches me fight on TV. But I would never take her on fight night. Boxing, it\u2019s no place for a baby, not a baby girl anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Molly-Mae<\/p>\n

Molly-Mae with their daughter, two-year-old Bambi<\/p>\n

@MOLLYMAE\/INSTAGRAM<\/p>\n

Hague was in the crowd when he fought Jake Paul in 2023, but spent the entire time with her head on her legs, so she wouldn\u2019t have to see anything.<\/p>\n

Can his mum, Chantal, watch him fight? \u201cNo. She listens to my fights on the radio.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fury tells me he doesn\u2019t care about money \u2014 potentially an easy thing to say, given that he and Hague topped a Love Island rich list published earlier this summer by The Sun. Fury was at No 1, with an estimated worth of \u00a310 million; Hague was No 2, at \u00a38 million.<\/p>\n

But, he says, \u201cMoney is not my God.\u201d God is, though. Fury is devoutly Christian. \u201cIf you ask me who is my king and who is my saviour? It\u2019s Jesus Christ and God.\u201d Fury says that as long as Jesus knows who he is and who his family are, who cares what everyone else thinks? Who cares about the internet trolls? \u201cOpinions are like arseholes. Everybody\u2019s got one.\u201d<\/p>\n

What does he want next from life?<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d love to give Bambi a sibling.\u201d<\/p>\n

How many kids would you have, ideally?<\/p>\n

\u201cForty.\u201d<\/p>\n

How does Hague feel about that?<\/p>\n

\"NINTCHDBPICT001013781365\"<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m going to take the black eyes and the broken ribs and the broken hands, so Bambi doesn\u2019t have to\u201d<\/p>\n

DAN KENNEDY FOR THE TIMES MAGAZINE. GROOMING: KATY BRODY AT ME AGENCY USING CHARLOTTE TILBURY AIRBRUSH POWDER, BRIGHTENING POWDER AND SETTING SPRAY<\/p>\n

\u201cMe and Molly have had private conversations. I don\u2019t think she\u2019s quite on track for 40.\u201d<\/p>\n

He tells me he\u2019s not secretly good at anything, apart from snooker and singing in the shower. He loves nature \u2014 he doesn\u2019t think people know that about him.<\/p>\n

I ask Fury how he\u2019d feel if Bambi went on Love Island. \u201cOh, that\u2019s a good question. I don\u2019t even want to think about that.\u201d He shakes his head.<\/p>\n

I mean \u2014 you couldn\u2019t stop her, really, could you? Given everything, given how you and her mother met?<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d do my f***ing best! I don\u2019t know. I don\u2019t know! I\u2019ll support her through anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

Boxing? Bambi\u2019s got Fury blood running throw her veins, after all \u2014 and women\u2019s boxing is a blossoming sport.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not beyond the realms of possibility, surely? Tommy Fury looks even more horrified by that idea than he was by the prospect of her becoming a contestant on Love Island.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo. She\u2019s too pretty to be a boxer.\u201d He smiles. \u201cI\u2019m going to take the black eyes and the broken ribs and the broken hands, so she doesn\u2019t have to.\u201d <\/p>\n

Watch Tommy: The Good. The Bad. The Fury on BBC iPlayer and BBC3 from August 19<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At the end of 2019, Tommy Fury \u2014 professional boxer, half-brother of Tyson, reality TV star \u2014 was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":55938,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[49,48,75,348],"class_list":["post-55937","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55937","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55937"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55937\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55938"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}