‘I JUST HOPE SOMEBODY KILLS ME’ Tyson Fury: If I had heroin, I’d take it. There’s been a witch-hunt against me because I’m a traveller. I don’t want to live any more

Painful to see. Painful to hear.

Forget the bragging about his drug habit, that he has taken “lots of cocaine”.

Tyson Fury is someone who has lost any modicum of self-respect.

A few months ago, the Gypsy King of the World, the unlikely hero from Manchester who had wrenched the WBA, IBF and WBO heavyweight titles from the seemingly unbeatable Wladimir Klitschko.

Surely, now, a former heavyweight boxing champion of the world.

In the grip of a mental health issue that, even for his sternest critics, requires sympathy. In a harrowing interview to Rolling Stone, he revealed: “I’m a manic depressive. I just hope someone kills me before I kill myself.

“I am seeking help but they can’t do nothing for me.

“I’ve been pushed to the brink. I can’t take no more. I’m in a hospital at the moment. I’m seeing psychiatrists. They say I’ve got a version of bipolar. I’m a manic depressive. All from what they’ve done to me. All this s**t through boxing, through taking titles, through writing me off.

“If I could take my own life, and I wasn’t a Christian, I’d take it in a second. I hope someone kills me before I kill myself or I’ll have to spend eternity in hell.

“And that’s it. I hate boxing now. I wouldn’t even go across the road to watch a world title fight.

“That’s what its done to me. I don’t even want to wake up. I hope I die every day. And that’s a bad thing to say when I’ve got three children and a lovely wife, isn’t it? But I don’t want to live any more.

“What I’ve got is incurable. All the money in the world, fame and glory, means nothing if you’re not happy. And I ain’t happy. I’m very far from it.”