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06th Jan 2025

Barry McGuigan pens tribute to late daughter on her ‘heavenly birthday’

Kat O'Connor

Barry McGuigan shared the moving post online

Former boxer Barry McGuigan has penned an emotional tribute to his late daughter Danika on her heavenly birthday.

The dad lost her daughter Danika in 2019 just five weeks after she was diagnosed with bowel cancer.

Writing on X, the dad shared a photo of his daughter on her ‘heavenly birthday’.

“Happy Heavenly Birthday to our beloved Nika RIP who would have been 39 today,” the dad wrote.

“We live in hope that we will be together again,” he added.

Barry recently opened up about the impact of the harrowing loss during his time on I’m A Celebrity.

Barry shared: “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…”

“I’ve tried to talk about it… Those horrible weeks in the hospital, just watching her. It was shocking.”

“She had leukaemia, when I was making The Boxer with Daniel Day Lewis, three weeks from the end I had to leave because she’d been diagnosed with leukaemia, they thought she wasn’t going to get better but she did, she fought back and she won it. She had two years of chemo. But she was good.”

Barry added: “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.”

Barry has been praised for being so open about his grief and for raising awareness about loss in such an open and honest way.

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