He has never lost a professional bout; he dragged himself out of a deep mental and physical health crisis to defy his detractors and become world boxing champion; and his miraculous rise from the canvas against Deontay Wilder in 2018 is one of sport’s most thrilling moments of determination and fortitude. Now, At Home With the Furys sets Tyson Fury one more against-all-odds challenge in a life full of them: can he create a Kardashians-style TV documentary about his family life that is as sappingly dull as every other celebrity-reality puff piece? All hail the Gypsy King: he has done it.
Cameras arrive chez Tyson in June 2022, just three weeks after his comfortable title defence against Dillian Whyte, a fight the champ immediately promised would be his last. The 6ft 9in punching machine is now simply a husband to Paris, whom he married in 2008, and a dad to six young children.
At Home With the Furys performs the same task as every other show in this genre, which is to portray its subjects as enviably glamorous and earthily ordinary at the same time. The family live in a massive house ( in Morecambe, rather than Los Angeles); they have a large collection of cars, but mostly drive around in a Ford van or a Volkswagen estate. Boxing has made Fury millions, but he enjoys nothing more than packing the kids and a bag of supermarket snacks into a caravan and parking up in a campsite overnight.
Tyson and Paris chat about being late for the school run, their eldest child being “12 going on 20”, plus the shift in family dynamic caused by him staying at home more and her being able to go to work – although, in the Furys’ case, their dad was heavyweight world boxing champion and mum’s new job is as a Loose Women panellist.
The adorably mundane scenes in which Tyson makes his kids toast or has a barbecue never go on for too long, because this format demands that every episode centres on a big event. A child celebrates a birthday; Paris throws a surprise birthday bash for Tyson; Tyson takes Paris on trips to Gleneagles and Cannes: it’s a numb whirl of party planners, diamond rings, bespoke cakes and money fluently spent. If you weren’t gripped by Keeping Up With the Kardashians, all the hectic luxury soon becomes boring. That it’s being experienced by a sweary British giant doesn’t make much difference.
The more serious thread is the question of whether Tyson’s mental health can withstand a life without the physical discipline and adrenalised peaks of championship boxing. In 2016, when he was temporarily absent from the ring and struggling with drink, drugs and weight gain, he told an interviewer he was having suicidal thoughts. Will the lack of purpose force him to come out of retirement? Anyone with any interest in his sporting career knows the answer: the first season ends with Fury fighting Derek Chisora in London in December.
But that was ages ago. Like a middling journeyman boxer, the series suffers on account of its sluggish reaction time. Two of the later episodes focus on Tyson’s attempt to lure Anthony Joshua into an all-British title fight, in a rehash of what was a major boxing story when it happened. The long time lag and the known outcome – a deal will never be struck – make those scenes stale, but they come after the halfway point in the season, by which point At Home With the Furys is starting to run out of material.
Fury and his family are clearly worried that his attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and bipolar disorder might exacerbate the common phenomenon of an elite sportsperson spiralling when their intense training regime ends. Anything that destigmatises those conditions is welcome. But a sanitised, aspirational reality documentary is never going to deal with the topic in any depth. Interviews with Paris, with Tyson’s father, John, and with Tyson himself don’t get any further than repeating the basic truth that staying busy and remaining physically active can help with mental health issues.
Paris talks openly about the challenges of being married to someone whose moods and decisions are unpredictable. The trouble is, the format thrives on extreme reactions and impulsive escapades, so when Tyson leaves his daughter’s christening party early or flies his entourage to Iceland for no good reason, it doesn’t feel like much of an insight into how his mind works – this is how the protagonists of fly-on-the-mansion-wall programmes always behave.
It’s the same old celeb-reality story: when Tyson makes it clear that he would rather go back to being punched in the face than stay at home full-time, you can’t really blame him.
• At Home With the Furys is available on Netflix
