Tyson Fury has revealed he was forced to move to the Isle of Man to escape the “nut jobs” that left him fearing for the safety of his family.
Fury uprooted his wife Paris and their seven children from Morecambe late last year because of the number of disturbed visitors who would arrive at his house at all hours of the day and night. The 37-year-old, who takes on Arslanbek Makhmudov in his latest comeback fight at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Saturday, insists the Isle of Man already feels like home.
“When people know where you live, you can be targeted at any time, so now I have moved and my address is confidential,” Fury said. “The final straw was when I had a lunatic come over my gates – 40ft gates. I’ve got an attack dog, I’ve got everything. The police came and he said: ‘I’m here to be adopted by Tyson and Paris’.
“He was a foreigner, an immigrant from somewhere. He didn’t speak very good English. The man was about 35 years old. He was wearing a dressing gown and pyjamas and, when the police asked where he came from, he said ‘London’ and that he was here to visit his father and mother.
“I wasn’t home, I was at the gym and Paris phoned me going nuts. This man could have had a knife or anything on him. At that moment I thought ‘I’m f***** here’. I also had to disconnect my intercom on the gates because it was going all night, every weekend.
“I had crackpots, drunk people, parking outside the front of the house ringing the bell asking ‘is Tyson in’? I’ve had a million nut jobs at my place. One time there was a guy and he was dressed in seashells from head-to-toe, looked like an absolute lunatic. He said ‘God sent me here to speak to you’.
“But my manager Spencer Brown offered him £20 and he grabbed it and vanished. These people are innocent but when is it going to be one who isn’t innocent? “I was actually targeted by foreign robbers too, they came to the UK to rob me and some other famous people and then run back to their country.
“I’m not down about it, I lived in Morecambe for 20 years, so it was time for a change. I looked at moving abroad, far away, but it turned out that the Isle of Man is the perfect place for me – English speaking, English pound notes. I can go and get an English newspaper from the local petrol station with my coffee and speak my own lingo.”
