I’m A Celebrity star Barry McGuigan paid moving tribute his daughter Danika who passed away in 2019, saying she was with him in the jungle
Boxing legend Barry McGuigan has told how his beloved daughter was by his side in the I’m A Celebrity jungle – and he wouldn’t have got so far without her.
The star said he took great comfort from thinking of Danika, who passed away aged just 33 – five weeks after being diagnosed with bowel cancer, in 2019.
Viewers had watched him break down talking about her to campmates in the most emotional scenes of the show to date. And speaking to the Mirror after becoming the latest celeb to become evicted from the Jungle, he opened up about how Danika inspired him throughout his jungle stint.
“My daughter died in 2019 which has broken our hearts,” he says. “It’s taken a long time but I don’t think you can ever recover from that, but I know she loved the show, and she would have loved to have seen me on the show. She would have been so proud of me. I know that.”
Opening Up: Barry talks about his I’m a Celeb journey (
Image:
Tim Merry/Staff Photographer)
Reflecting on how hard it’s been for him and his wife Sandra, he adds: “I can’t explain to you how sad it’s been for us for the last five years… but I knew she was with me in there, and I probably wouldn’t have got as far as I did without her being with me.
“I know that she travels everywhere with me, and I believe that 100% and we’ll see each other again sometime.”
In the jungle, Barry began talking about Danika after Jane spotted a tattoo of her on his arm, and asked who it was. He laughs now as he shows off his tattoo as it’s covered in bites. “It’s all those bloody cockroaches, she would have laughed about that,” he says.
He says that he thinks about his daughter “all the time.” He remembers watching Jill Scott winning the show in 2022, when he first thought of doing the show.
“I just remember thinking ‘my daughter would love me doing that’, as we all watched the show,” he says. “She was only a young girl and started as an actress.”
Barry McGuigan and Danika (
Image:
PA)
Barry McGuigan back at the hotel (
Image:
Tim Merry/Staff Photographer)
Barry, who also has three sons, Shane, Jake, and Blain, said that he was “madly in love” with wife Sandra, who he will be married to for 43 years next week. And he jokes how after losing 15 and a half pounds on the rice and beans diet, Sandra liked his new svelte figure.
“She said: ‘God you look great, you need to do that more often,’” he laughed. “Well, I’ll tell you from a diet perspective, it is very tough. I haven’t dieted since my last preparation for my last fight, to the same extent.”
Barry said the experience was “one of the best things I’ve ever done” although the torrential rain was tough at times. He says: “Living in the west of Ireland, we have a lot of wind and rain. Good God Almighty, I’ve never seen anything like it. The worst we’ve ever had in 20 odd years…just lashing down.”
At one point Alan Halsall had to divert a river which had formed. “I said to him ‘you should be a bloody engineer,’” he says.
The former world heavyweight boxer described the experience as a “massive psychological test”.
“I missed my salt, my pepper – all my condiments, and your spirit is down and your energy is down, when it rains incessantly like that,” he says. “There’s no doubt it makes you a little bit more depressed.”
Barry said the conditions were so grim that he had to have a pep talk with his campmates so they didn’t all take it out on each other. He reveals: “I said to the camp at the beginning – every single one of them – that we can go one way or we can go the other. We can get crabby with each other when we are lacking in food and get nasty with each other. Or we can be nice and respectful. I said, ‘I know what one I want to be…I want to be respectful to everybody, and I want you to be respectful to me.’ And they were all great.”
Fighting talk: Barry on life under the stars (
Image:
Tim Merry/Staff Photographer)
Barry McGuigan and wife Sandra (
Image:
PA)He also said that he was well aware that ITV were paying him “very well for it” and this drove him on to take everything on the chin. “You understand the rules and you must do as they say, that’s the deal, and we understand that,” he says. It’s why he refused to get involved with “teabag-gate” which saw Dean McCullough smuggle the item into camp. “Everybody will try and cheat here and there, but it’s only a bit of fun. But I’m telling you, you eat rice and beans for three weeks and tell me how you feel,” he says.
He said there was genuinely a togetherness in the camp unlike some previous series that he had watched.
“There’s been years where there’s been spitefulness and people falling out, but not this year,” he says.
One of his favourite friendships was with McFly star Danny Jones, who he says reminded him of his late singer dad Pat, who finished fourth in Eurovision.
“He’s so like my father, he’s such a talented boy. And my God, he was so great with the guitar and the sing alongs. I hope Danny wins, because Danny’s just such a great fellow.”
Barry says he wishes he could have stayed till the final. But he says the competition is too close to call.
“Al’s very good, Oti as well. I don’t think enough people know Grace. So I think it’s between the others and maybe Reverend Richard. Oh, he’s a dark horse. He’s hilarious, and I just loved just my time with him. I could have talked to him all day, every day.”
Most of all Barry liked the peace and quiet afforded by being in the jungle. And he said it was much more stunning than he ever imagined. He adds: “It’s an incredible place. And you look at it on TV and you think it can’t be that beautiful, but then you turn up there yourself, and it’s beyond beautiful.”
