Kellie Maloney: I’d be dead if I hadn’t come out as a trans woman
Former boxing manager Kellie Maloney has said that she would have taken her own life if she hadn’t come out as transgender.
The former UKIP candidate and Lennox Lewis manager first revealed her transition in August, before signing up to appear on Celebrity Big Brother.
While receiving make-up treatment today, she told the Star: “If I hadn’t come-out as a woman, I wouldn’t be laying here on a beauty clinic treatment bed, I would be laying on a slab in an undertakers.
“That was the choice I had, it was either let it beat me and have the depression kill me or come out and embrace the world.
“On my way to the clinic today, some girls stopped me and said they really admired what I was doing and how brave I was.
“But I don’t put it down to bravery, I put it down to being a necessity of what I had to do.”
Ms Maloney has been public about the details of her transition, previously revealing that she will undergo private gender confirmation surgery in January next year.
Her fee for appearing on Channel 5 show Celebrity Big Brother – rumoured to be upwards of £400,000 – will partly be donated to trans support group TG Pals.
Prior to her transition, Maloney attracted criticism for homophobic remarks, claiming that she would ban pride marches.
She also told the BBC in 2004 that she would not campaign in the London borough of Camden, because there were “too many gays”.
She said in September: “I’m not homophobic. I have gay friends. And my recent experiences have left me wiser and more tolerant. I’ve learnt a lot.
“I still don’t think that children should be brought up in same-sex marriages.”
