The 63 year old Irish boxer opened up to his campmates about his daughter’s untimely death.
The family of Barry McGuigan has thanked his I’m A Celebrity campmates after the boxer broke down when speaking about his late daughter, Danika.
The Irish former boxing champion got emotional when opening up to his jungle campmate’s about his daughter’s untimely death in 2019.
His son Shane McGuigan took to social media to thank his father’s cast mates for their compassion.
Shane shared on Instagram: “Thank you to all the other campmates supporting dad. We appreciate it immensely.”
Danika passed away at age 33 after being diagnosed with stage four colon cancer.
She had begun breaking into the Irish film scene having starred in a number of film and TV productions before her death, including the screen adaptation of Sebastian Barry’s novel ‘The Secret Scripture’.
Additionally, she starred alongside Seána Kerslake and Amy Huberman in RTÉ’s hit comedy series ‘Can’t Cope, Won’t Cope’.
Barry opened up to his I’m A Celebrity campmates about how his only daughter had originally recovered from leukemia as a child after two years of treatment.
As the reality show cast discussed going to church, the Monaghan man said: “I used to go to church a lot but after my daughter, not so much. ‘I used to go incessantly but when you lose a child…”
“She had done all this work to get to where she was, she’d just won at the Toronto Film Festival. She had stage four bowel cancer and five weeks later, she died. She suffered so much pain and she said ‘Mum, I can’t hold on.'”
He continued: “When I was making the movie The Boxer with Daniel Day-Lewis, three weeks from the end I had to leave because she had been diagnosed with leukemia. They thought she wasn’t going to get better but she fought back and she won it. She had two years of chemo, she did good, she came back.”
The 63 year old was left unable to speak as he broke down in tears, but his jungle mates quickly gathered to comfort him, with N-Dubz singer and former The X Factor judge, Tulisa Contostavlos, telling him: “You’re a man feeling pain and you’re vulnerable about it – that takes strength.”
He told his fellow campmates that when he talks about it ‘it all comes back’.
“It was horrible, spending weeks in the hospital just watching … shocking.”
The other celebrities were moved to tears, with Colleen Rooney also breaking down as she recalled the death of her younger sister Rosie when she was 14.
The Irish boxer told the group: “You’re all too lovely, I really appreciate it.”
