Tony Bellew’s wife in shocking ‘dirty f**king fag’ rant
Tony Bellew’s wife Rachael Roberts talking to him at Manchester Arena (Richard Heathcote/Getty)
British champion boxer Tony Bellew’s wife has unleashed a tirade of anti-gay slurs at bar staff after her husband was beaten in his final fight.
Rachael Roberts was filmed yelling at an employee at Manchester Arena.
She launched into a tirade after her husband was knocked out by Ukrainian fighter Oleksandr Usyk on Saturday (November 10).
Ff**king crying right now, you f**king queer,” Roberts said.
“Dirty f**king fag,” she added while walking away from the staff member, according to the video provided to the Mirror.
“How f**king dare you, do you know who I am?”
— Rachael Roberts
Rachael Roberts made the comments after her husband Tony Bellew’s final fight (Richard Heathcote/Getty)
The victim explained that near the end of a “long shift,” they had asked their colleague if the match was over.
When they responded that it was, they claimed claimed they replied: “Thank god for that.”
This reportedly prompted the outburst, with Roberts saying: “How f**king dare you, do you know who I am?”
Workers had no idea she was Tony Bellew’s wife
The workers didn’t know that the woman in the lift was Tony Bellew’s wife, Rachael Roberts (tonybellew/Instagram)
The staff member explained that they had asked their co-worker about the match, which ended in round eight, because “our bar was not in the main arena and so we couldn’t see the main actions in the arena.”
The worker said they didn’t know their lift companion was Roberts, who has three children with Bellew.
They said that Bellew’s wife was “completely out of order.
“It had been a busy night and I just wanted to desperately get home.”
Tony Bellew’s wife made the comments after he was beaten on Saturday (Nathan Stirk/Getty)
PinkNews has contacted Bellew’s representatives for comment.
After Rachael Roberts’ comments, does boxing have an anti-gay problem?
Tony Bellew’s wife is not the first figure in boxing to incur a backlash for using offensive anti-gay language.
In July, former world champion boxer Floyd Mayweather used a homophobic slur against his opponent, MMA star Conor McGregor, shouting in a press conference: “You punk. You faggot. You ho!”
Mayweather finally issued an apology for the remarks three weeks later, saying that there were “certain boundaries you just don’t cross.”
McGregor refused to condemn the homophobic slur.
“People are so touchy on words. It’s absolutely crazy. If he said that, I couldn’t give a (expletive),” he said.
Last year, British Olympic boxer Billy Joe Saunders shared a photo with his 92,000 Twitter followers of a Sheffield shop assistant called Johnny Marsh.
He said that Marsh, who had long hair, makeup and earrings, “confused” him.
Before Tony Bellew’s wife’s rant, Floyd Mayweather and Conor McGregor also used anti-gay slurs (Ethan Miller/Getty)
After people criticised the WBO middleweight champion’s post, Saunders wrote: “Its up to him I don’t dislike him but don’t think it’s right for kids to see that’s all.”
World champion Tyson Fury returned to boxing last year after temporarily quitting over what he called a “witch hunt” prompted by him comparing gay people to paedophiles.
Fury was previously controversially nominated for the BBC’s Sports ‘Personality’ award – despite claiming that homosexuality and paedophilia would bring about the apocalypse.
He also sparked outrage in 2016, after making homophobic, sexist and antisemitic comments in an hour-long video rant.
