McFly’s Danny Jones has thanked former world champion boxer Barry McGuigan, for allowing him to punch him in the chest on I’m a Celebrity, admitting that “today my life was made”.
After Friday’s Bushtucker Trial, which saw Jones and Dean McCullough take part in the “Highstreet of Horrors”, which resulted in the latter departing for the “Jungle Junkyard”, talk in the camp turned to boxing with Coleen Rooney revealing she bought her kids a boxing ring last year for the house.
Rooney revealed her family’s boxing history to McGuigan and Jones: “My dad had us, me and my two brothers sparring each other when we were younger. He used to get us in the living room, we’ve got it all on video.
“I was Big Betty, my brother’s called Jo and he was Little Josie, and we used to have a ring walk,” she added.
The Irish boxer then revealed that he had a plastic nose as a result of boxing: “When I had it broken it was flat, so they just took the bone out and replaced it with plastic.”
Jones then asked the 63-year-old the best way to train for body shots.
McGuigan treated the McFly star to a demo and asked him to tense his stomach and lightly punched Jones, who immediately yelled out in pain and clutched his stomach.
Allowing him to return the favour, Barry commanded him to hit harder, as Jones landed 5 punches to the former featherweight champion’s chest.
Later on, Jones reflected in the Bush Telegraph: “Today my life was made, because Barry McGuigan let me hit him in the stomach. I hit him really hard and it was solid, it was like hitting a brick wall.”
McGuigan has produced the most moving moment of I’m a Celebrity so far when he opened up about the death of his daughter five years ago.
Northern Irish BBC Radio 1 presenter Dean McCullough, who has become an early fan-favourite, initiated the conversation on Monday night (18 November) as he asked McGuigan if he goes to church.
“I used to go to church a lot but after my daughter… you know, not so much,” the former boxer replied as he explained the health issues that preceded her death.
“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 fought back and she won it. She had two years of chemo.”
McGuigan’s only daughter Danika died in July 2019, aged 33. She recovered from leukaemia after being diagnosed at the age of 11, but she was diagnosed with bowel cancer in 2019, and died within a month.
