I'm A Celeb's Tony Bellew floors his fellow campmates with 'skint' confession

23 November 2023 , 22:14

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Tony Bellew left his fellow campmates stunned on Thursday night (Image: ITV)

I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!'s former boxer Tony Bellew has revealed his wife Rachael told him to stop fighting as she thought they were in the money when he became world champion — only for him to explain they were "skint".

The 40-year-old ended his career with some big wins against David Haye, which were also big in terms of paydays, but it wasn't always like that. Speaking about the days after his world title fight at Goodison Park in May 2016, Tony revealed: "We were in the kitchen and my missus said, 'That it now then, that’s you done?'.

"And I believe that a man should go out and provide for his family, probably everyone doesn’t agree with this or like it anymore… I go out and work and I try to give them the best I can… she said, 'What do you mean?' I said, 'We’re so far away from financial security.' We were basically f***ing skint" to which fellow campmate, Josie Gibson, said in surprise: "What?"

Tony Bellew left his fellow campmates stunned on Thursday night (ITV)

Tony then explained: "I had a big, heavy, heavy mortgage. I shouldn’t say skint, but I was living on fight to fight." Speaking about his fights with David Haye, Tony added: "Me and David get on these days. I’ve fought David twice and beaten him twice, but he’s a far better fighter than me."

Tony became WBC champion at Cruiserweight in 2016 and made a defence of the belt before moving up to heavyweight to fight David Haye. It is reported that Bellew earned a £2.8million purse from their first fight which he won and they then had a money spinning rematch as well.

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Tony did eventually retire in November 2018 after losing to Oleksandr Usyk at Cruiserweight. He reportedly earned £4million from the fight but was stopped in round eight. He told reporters after 20 years in the ring it was time to retire.

Josie Gibson was left in surprise (ITV)

Elsewhere, in the home camp, Frankie Dettori spoke about his decision not to retire from racing this year. He was due to have stopped riding now but had a change of heart at the last minute when he got an offer to go to America. He said: "I got to the beginning of the season, I thought I’m 52, I’ve had a great life riding, and I’m on the top at the moment. I might as well stop at the top. So I announced: ‘Right, this is my last year, going to say my last goodbyes.’

"Announced it to the world, [then] went to California for four months, smashed it, did really well. Then I came back to England, kept on winning, kept on winning… and I got to August, the season stops in October and I thought, ‘I don’t really want to retire!’"

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Mark Jefferies in Queensland