4 days Ago By Kimberly Nhundu
I'm A Celebrity star Barry McGuigan has broken down after sharing the tragic story of his daughter's death in a heart-to-heart with his fellow campmates. The latest series of the gruelling ITV show kicked off yesterday (November 17), with familiar faces including McFly singer Danny Jones, Radio personality Dean McCullough and WAG Coleen Rooney entering the jungle. In tonight's episode, emotions were high as former boxing champion Barry opened up about his daughter Danika's cancer diagnosis and passing.
While the contestants were sitting around the campfire, Dean asked the 63-year-old if he goes to church, to which Barry candidly responded: “I used to go to church a lot but after my daughter...
you know, not so much.” McGuigan tragically lost his daughter in 2019, five weeks after she was diagnosed with stage four bowel cancer. Explaining the loss of Danika, known as Nika, he said: “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.” Nika beat the disease when she was a child and went on to build an acting career, even appearing in the 2016 Irish drama Mammal, alongside Barry Keoghan. Unfortunately, the actress faced another bout of the illness in her early thirties.
As Barry told the story, he became overwhelmed with emotion and broke down. His campmates quickly rallied to comfort the sportsman, with Danny and N-Dubz singer Tulisa giving him a hug. Speaking of the second bout of cancer, he told journalist Jane Moore that Nika had “pains in her tummy but she was making the movie, she put it off and went to the doctor, called us all in.
Stage 4 bowel cancer, 5 weeks, 5 weeks she died.” Barry has previously opened up about his grief and confessed that he will never recover from the loss. Speaking to Belfast Live in 2021, he said: "I lost my daughter two years ago and it’s been shocking.
"I'll never recover from it. My life will go on but I’ll never be the same because family means everything to me." Although Nika was Barry's only daughter, he has three sons; Shane, Jake, and Blane with his wife of over 40 years, Sandra.
I'm A Celebrity...
Get Me Out Of Here! continues tomorrow night at 9pm on ITV1 and ITVX followed by I'm A Celebrity: Unpacked on ITV2 after the main show..
