Former Ashes hero Freddie Flintoff has told broadcaster Piers Morgan of his ‘guilt’ over Ricky Hatton’s death. He said the boxing legend had opened up to him about his mental woes
14:39, 16 Oct 2025Updated 15:44, 16 Oct 2025
Ricky Hatton(Image: Getty Images)
Cricket legend Freddie Flintoff has told of his ‘guilt’ over Ricky Hatton’s tragic death.
The ex-England ace said Hatton had opened up to him about his mental woes during a night out together – and realised he shared some of the same feelings.
But Freddie, 47, said when he last saw the boxer on a train a few weeks ago he ‘seemed fine’ and he had no inkling of the internal anguish he must have been feeling.
Hatton, 46, was found hanged at his home in Hyde, Greater Manchester on September 14, an inquest has heard.
In an emotional interview Freddie told Piers Morgan Uncensored on YouTube: “I sat with him a while ago on a train.
Freddie Flintoff attending the funeral of Ricky Hatton(Image: Getty Images)
“I got on a train and he’d been somewhere. We sat together all the way back up to Manchester, like, quite unexpected.
“And I think it’s like all these things, when something like that happens and you speak and everyone says, ‘He seemed fine’, ‘he seemed all right’, ‘he was looking forward to fighting in the next few weeks out in Dubai’.
‘The Hitman’ was preparing to return to boxing(Image: AFP via Getty Images)
“There’s almost a guilt. How people didn’t know? And the one thing I found in recent years, over the past few years, it’s happened to more and more people.
“With Graham Thorpe in cricket – an absolute great man, someone who is thought of so dearly by everyone who played with and everyone he’s coached.
“You just feel like, if only we would have known. But you know it’s terrible.”
Freddie said Hatton’s death felt ‘quite close to home in a lot of ways’. He said: “Ricky, one of the great men, you know.
“I met him years ago. We did a thing for Sky Sports and I went on the pads and he started hitting me and I was a fan as well.
“He’s charming, he’s funny, our careers run parallel with each other at the height, at the same time.
“I went to his fights. We had nights out in the Press Club in Manchester and we’ve sung karaoke together and I never knew all these things that he was struggling with until we sat down.
“When we started talking, obviously, he was so honest about what he had been going through and what he felt.
“And then, as he was talking, I was, like, relating to it. I’ve felt like that, that’s what I’ve been like.
Flintoff took up boxing after his cricket career(Image: Getty Images)
“Then it just turned into a chat about two blokes being really honest.
“I suppose that documentary changed and I wasn’t going to give as much away about myself but then felt obliged to actually if he’s doing this.”
He said Ricky was a ‘working class hero from Manchester who goes into the ring, he fights, all heart’.
“He’s funny. You see him like doing stand up routines at press conferences and he feels like this,” he said.
“And then obviously what’s happened over the past two weeks, it’s been devastating.
“For obviously his friends, his family but anyone who has been in contact with Ricky.”