Joe Rogan - How Tyson Fury Bounced Back From Depression & Addiction

You're an interesting story man because not just because your personality but because you've come back from mental illness and you're very very open about it. Yeah. You know I think that's a very unique thing. I remember when you beat Klitschko and won the title and then you kind of went off the rails. And I thought you were just partying. You know when I heard about it I thought well guy made a shitload of money became the heavyweight champion. All the pressure in the press and all the craziness but it was more than that. It was more than that. It started off like I'd suffered with mental health problems my whole life but I didn't know what it was because I never had no education on the matter. And it wasn't until after the Klitschko fight a very massive high that I had to have an even worse or low. Lowest low that anyone could ever have. I'd wake up and I think why did I wake up this morning. This is coming from a man who had everything money fame glory titles a wife a family kids everything. But I felt as if I had nothing I felt there was an empty gaping hole that was just filled with gloom and doom and it just was one bad thing happened to me after another within seven days the IBF stripped me of their title because I couldn't defend against Klitschko. It was nobody because I had a rematch clause for Vladimir but the IBF wasn't expecting me to beat Vladimir. So they took that clause in there anyway thinking Vladimir is going to win and defend against Klitschko because I won they stripped me of the belt which is none of my reason. Within seven days of the fight? Yeah. That's insane. Yeah. How can they require you to fight within seven days? No they didn't but they required me to go into negotiations. And you didn't so just not going into negotiations to sign they stripped you within seven days? Yeah but they knew I couldn't go into negotiations because of a rematch clause. Boxing's a dirty place. So I was stuck in between a rock and a hard place. Yeah. And that's what happened that was one belt gone. And then my team and Klitschko's team were carrying on about where the fight was going to be. It was going to be on a cruise ship in Dubai. It was going to be here. It was going to be there. Time was dragging on. A cruise ship? A cruise ship? Yeah there was some Arab billionaire who wanted to make this fight an exclusive fight for him and his buddies. No. Yeah. Come on. Seriously this fight was heading for a cruise ship. That fucking oil money man. They've got some money. They can afford it. Do it. That's what I say. That would have been the most hilarious scenario ever for a world heavyweight title fight. A bunch of Arab billionaires on a cruise ship. Wow. So they stripped you of the IBF belt. You go into negotiations with Klitschko for the rematch. How come the rematch never happened? The rematch didn't happen initially because I went over on my ankle in training. I was in Holland training for the rematch. And I was running up on heavy terrain. And I went over on my ankle, spraying my ankle quite badly. So we had to postpone the fight. But by the time I was off like say three months getting his ankle right and all that. I just didn't want to do it anymore if you know what I mean. I didn't have the desire. The fire wasn't burning no longer to fight. And I was suffering with depression the whole time. Even in training camp before I sprained my ankle. I was depressed as depressed could be on a daily basis. And I think why am I feeling like this? I don't have no reason to feel like it. Some people will say oh well it's attention seeking or whatever. But unless you've experienced what I'm saying it's sort of impossible to understand where I've been or where I've come from. And it just went from bad to worse. I hit the drink heavily on a daily basis. I hit the drugs. I was out all night partying with women of the night and not coming home. And you know I didn't care about boxing. I didn't care about living. I just wanted to die. And I was going to have a good time doing it while I was doing it. I used to drink and take drugs to get away from the depression because when I was drunk or high then I wouldn't think about being depressed before about being a boxing champion or am I feel great. But as we know when the drink wears off it only leaves you with a bad hangover and feeling even more depressed. For someone who suffers with mental health the worst thing we can do to escape it is take drugs or alcohol. But yeah that's the most common approach. And that's the common approach because people we don't know because it's not spoke about. And this is why I want to spread the word on mental health so when other people are in this position in the future they know where to go and they know what to do because there's a blueprint. Well kudos to you for doing that because so so few people have the courage to talk about their struggles when they go through that because it seems like a weakness. Yeah. You know it's very powerful that you're willing to do that and just be open and honest about it. There's a few people out there that are doing that now. You know our friend Mauro Ranallo. He's gone through some some serious mental health issues and he's very open about it and talks about it quite a bit. Now when you were training for the first Klitschko fight for the fight rather did you have it then? Not really no. I was set focused on what I wanted to do and that was beat Vladimir Klitschko. And I believe when you've got a goal in mind from being a child all your life and you do that then I was like I was lost. I was almost like I didn't have anything more to do in my life. Although I could have carried on and defended the belts and whatever. I wasn't really interested in doing that. I beat the man I'd always wanted to do because when I was an amateur boxer I used to watch a movie. I always flooded me a Klitschko on TV as a world heavyweight champion. And I always aimed he was my target to beat. And when I finally beat him it was like climbing me Everest. I didn't have anything more to prove. And the fire was dead. There was no fire. I was forcing myself to fight. And I always said I didn't want to be one of those people who just fought for money. Because there's plenty of people with money in the world. Plenty of them. But who knows them. And the reasons for me fighting it's not for money or for belts or glory. I fight because I don't know anything else. I've always been a fighter from being born to being 30 years old now. It's all I love to do. I don't have any other passion. I've looked. The Lord knows I've looked. And if I had anything else I was good at or I could do I'd be doing it. I just I tried retirement. I was 27. I retired under the second man in boxing heavyweight history to retire unbeaten as a world champion like Rocky Marcy Harnoldt before me. But it wasn't enough. I was like I am lost without this fight game. I tried golfing. I tried clay pigeon shooting. I tried four by four in. I tried going to strip clubs, bars, restaurants, everything. And it was just like I had this emptiness inside where I just wanted to fight. Well, in comparison to what you've accomplished, everything else has to seem pretty dull. I mean, you step into the ring with Vladimir Klitschko, who was widely considered to be one of the greatest heavyweights ever and you box his face off. I mean, that was a beautiful performance. It was. You shut him down. It was weird. It was weird to watch him. It's like there was moments in that fight where he just he just looked like he didn't know what to do with you. And we're going to see it again on December the first. Like I said to Vladimir, I said the same thing to Deontay Wilder. You fought the Americans, you fought the Mexicans, you fought the Europeans, but you ain't never fought the Gypsy King before. I said it straight to Vladimir. I said, you're looking at King. I said, have you ever fought King before? He said, no. I said, we fight him on now. And I said, you're going to lose to one. Well, he's lost before, but he's lost because he got clipped and hurt and stopped. And I was very impressed with him actually in the Anthony Joshua fight because he came back from getting badly hurt and almost put Joshua away. But the fight with you is different because you just outboxed him and he was known as the guy who would box and hold, jab and hold. I mean, he was one of the most boring heavyweights of all time. Fantasticly successful. But from a spectator point of view, you watch some of his fights like Jesus Christ, he would jab you, grab you, jab you, grab you. I mean, that was his thing. Right hand, grab you. It worked. He had 25 title defenses. Yeah, I mean, it was very successful, but that shit didn't work with you. It didn't. For the first time in his whole career, he was fighting somebody who was not just bigger than him, but more athletic, who could move more. Someone who wasn't just looking for one lucky punch. I knew going into the Vladimir fight that everybody, all the rest of the opponents and 25 men before me, all went in trying to do the same thing, trying to knock him out. And he's got some of a weird defense where he puts both arms out in front of him. And it's almost very awkward to land on that chin with big punches. So I thought, I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to make that mistake. I'm going to outbox him. And every single team said, this is not a good idea. We've got to go to Germany to try and outbox a super champion and try and win on the cards. Are you crazy? I said yes. I said, but if I wasn't crazy, I wouldn't be great. And I went over there and outboxed him. And nobody, nobody, apart from my brother or my father, thought I could do it. You know, even people who were close to me in camp, they were like, they were very unsure of what was going to happen. And me being me, I always had that little smile on my face because I believed it. I believed I could always beat Vladimir Klychko. I even told Vladimir years before when I was 22, I said, I'll beat you one day. Emmanuel Stewart told him to God rest his soul. He said, Tyson Fury is the heir to the throne. He said, when his time is ready, he will beat you straight to him. Vladimir hated that. He hated Emmanuel talking about me like that. But he done it either way. Well, I'm sure it was good fire under him during training as well. Now, you, you were focused for that fight. You were, you were prepared. And afterwards, was it just the realization that you'd accomplished this incredible goal that set into depression? Was it you didn't know what to do next? Or was it just that your focus was now no longer on this unattainable, you know, like, almost insurmountable obstacle in front of you becoming the heavyweight champion of the world. All of a sudden you did it, then the depression kicks in. Yeah. My conditioning trainer, Christian, he said to me before the Klychko fight, he said, what will you do after you win? I said, probably be depressed for a long time. He said, what? I said, truthfully, I was almost expecting it. And I didn't think I'd ever box again. Even the day after the Klychko fight, Sky Sports interviewed me, the UK broadcaster who put it on. And he said, what's next for Tyson Fury? I said, I'll probably never box again. I knew, I said to me, dad and me brothers before the fight, a week before the fight, I said, win, lose or draw. I said, this is probably going to be my last fight. Because I knew the fire was going. I didn't have that hunger anymore. I had the hunger to beat Vladimir Klychko, but not to carry on and continue. And I said, I didn't want it to be about money or financial gain. I wanted to be the best of my time, beat the best man. And that's what I did. And I was a man of me word and I didn't box again. Until two and a half year later, I decided to make a comeback because I was sitting here at 400 pounds, a drug addict, an alcoholic. By the way, I'd never took a drug in my life until I got to 27. Really? Not smoked weed, not nothing. Drug free. What were the drugs of choice once you won the title? Cocaine was the usual one. And that was it really. Cocaine and alcohol. It's like crazy drug and alcohol mix. But you know, I look back on it now and I think, would I change that? I wouldn't. Not many people would think, well, this man's crazy for saying that on a radio show. But I wouldn't change a thing. Because I know it was supposed to happen. And I needed to be tested to see what type of character it was. Although I did all those mad things and I went through all that time and I tried to commit suicide and I... How did you try to commit suicide? Well, I'll tell you what happened. I, like I said, I was waking up and I didn't want to be alive. I was making everybody's life a misery. Everybody was close to me and was pushing away. Nobody could talk to me, talk any sense into me at all. And I'd go very, very, very low at times. Very low. And I'd start thinking all these crazy thoughts and this, that and the other. And I was in my car. I bought a brand new Ferrari convertible in the summer of 2016. And I was in it and I was on the highway. And there's a strip of the highway where I am. And at the bottom of about a five mile strip, there's a massive bridge that crosses the motorway. And I knew that. And I got the car up to 190 miles an hour. I was heading towards that bridge. And I didn't care. No one was thinking. I didn't care about hurting my family, me, my career, people, friends, anybody. I didn't care. I didn't care about nothing. I just wanted to die so bad. I give up on life. And just as I was heading towards that bridge at 190 in this Ferrari, it had crushed like a Coke can by the way for the video. I heard a voice say, no, don't do this Tyson. Think about your kids. Think about your family and your little boys and girls growing up with no father. And everyone saying your dad was a weak man. He left us. He took the easy way out because he couldn't do anything about it. And before I turned into the bridge, I pulled on the motorway and I was shaking. I could feel myself shaking and I pulled over and I was all nervous and didn't know what to do. I was frightened and I was so afraid. And I thought that day I'll never, ever, ever try or think about taking my own life ever again. And I didn't. I went and got help from a leading psychiatrist doctor in the UK. And my dad went up with me and she said to me, dad, she said, can I have a word alone with you, John? He said, yeah. My dad told me what she said when he came out. She said, he is not to be trusted alone. He's an imminent death risk. That's the highest level of suicide risk that she'd ever assisted. And she said, without his faith, he would have been dead a long time ago. But she said, Faith alone ain't gonna hold him because that's gonna break. And once that goes, he's done. So that put me dad's life terror as well, because he was checking up on me all the time. He wanted to be with me 24 seven. He was even sleeping in my house with me. A married man with four kids. I was in a right state. I just, I just, I want it. I just didn't want to live anymore. And I had everything that man could want. There wasn't nothing I didn't have. But it meant nothing. Nothing meant anything. I thought, well, I'm gonna have to go. No, no, no. I, I'm gonna have to go to the gym. It's not worthless. The longer it went on, the, the more it hurt inside. The more I was hurting everybody. Everybody give up on me. My full family thought I was definitely going to die and I was going to kill myself. And after that I tried, I was thinking to myself, you know what, I need to get better, I need to do something. But every time I tried to go to the gym I had another voice saying that. This ain't forals anymore, I'm not going to do this. I didn't want to do it, I'd run 200 yards and pull up. I wouldn't even get a mile and think, oh, can't be bothered, I don't want to do this. Boxing is not for me, I hated boxing at one stage. In 2016, early 17, I wouldn't have done a boxing fight for this room full of diamonds. No way. I hated boxing, I wouldn't watch it on the TV, I wouldn't read about it. I hated boxing. I'd done it my whole life and I didn't want no part of it anymore. I was out drinking. I didn't care, I'd give up. Taking drugs like I said. And it come to a point I was doing that for 18 months of my life. And I was out in 2017 Halloween. I was a 400 pounds dressed up as a skeleton. And I go to this fancy dress party and I'm looking around and I'm thinking, this is the best. These are all young kids compared to me. I'm 13, I feel like I was the oldest guy in there, like 29. I was like, what am I doing here? Is this what you want for your life? And I thought to myself, this is not me. And no matter how many people told me before this, where I was going wrong, what I was doing, you need to act to your life. You can only change your life if you want to change it. And I left and everyone said, are you going home early? I said, yeah. I left at 9 o'clock, I went home. And I got back home, I didn't say anything to the wife, I went straight upstairs into a dark room. And I took the stupid skeleton suit off and I was sat there and I got on my knees and I was praying and begging God to help me. And at this point, I'd never, I've never begged or cried to God to help me before. I prayed a lot all my life, but I'd never been in this physical state before. I could feel tears running down my face. My chest was wet with tears because I knew I couldn't do it on my own. It wasn't possible for me. Because I tried and tried and tried and ended up back in the pub, back drinking. I almost accepted that that was going to be my fate and alcoholic. So I was on my knees in this bedroom. After praying for about 10 minutes, I got up and I felt the weight of the world was lifted off my shoulders. And for the first time in years, I knew I was going to make a comeback and I called my wife, I said, Paris, Paris. She said, what? She thought I was drunk coming home from the pub. I said, Monday morning, I start to regain mission to try and get the heavyweight championship of the world back. She said, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because before this, every time I'd have a beer, I'd come back and I'm going to be the heavyweight champion of the world again because it was, it was the alcohol talking. So I was like the man who called Wolf a thousand times on this, this stupid career that I was living on the past, thinking about years before glory days. And after this prayer, I got up, I said, right, this is going to be, she didn't believe me one second, but even when I speak to her now, she says that night you told me that she said, I hear a difference in your voice. Something happened. Next day I phoned up Ben Davison. And I said, I don't want to go back down the old route with the same trainer, same promoter, same anything. I said, everything's got to change. I said, it's going to be a new Tyson Fury. And we called it Return of the Mac mission. And I also went out that morning after phoning Ben and arranging everything, I went out for a run in my sweatsuit. I had ambitions of running two miles. I got about five minutes into the run and stopped and I walked. And while I was walking, I thought I can't run, I'm too fat, 400 pounds. But I thought I'm going to walk, I'm going to get out and walk. While I was walking, I was flicking through on my phone on Instagram. And I see this video of Deontay Wilder saying, yeah, Tyson Fury's finally done that because the week before I'd been on a boxing show in Manchester or something and the press took a picture of him and it was like everywhere, this big, fat, out of shape, ugly, bald-headed, bearded, white as a sheep man. I was like a state. And he'd done this video, yeah, after seeing this evidence of Tyson Fury, I finally know he's finished. He can never come back and even if I would have fought him in his A day, I'd have knocked him out. And before that, he was talking about Mike Tyson, how he'd knocked Mike Tyson out and around. And I thought to myself, that's very disrespectful to talk about someone who's not even from your era and want to fight them and all that sort of stuff, but there's no possible chance. So I thought to myself, you know what, if I ever do fight you, I'm going to give it you for that reason. And then when I saw this other video of him saying things about me and that I couldn't come back and that, it gave me that much more motivation to return just so I can beat Deontay Wilder. So I had all these court cases on as well. I was being charged with taking performance and enhancing drugs in Andralone, something I'd never done. I had I had an Andralone in my system. It's produced naturally in the body, but they say my levels were elevated. The UK AD, UK Antidopin said there was no case to answer. But all of a sudden, I had a big wadder case on me. That took nearly three years to sort out. And by and everyone said, you're getting hat mailed on here, son. You're getting a 12 year ban. And I said, you know what, 12 years, not just for Andralone. I refused them as well. I was in a bad mood one day and the drug testing people come in the gym and I've told them to fuck off. This is when you were training for your comeback. This was when I was out of training. Yeah. When I was just all the time I was. A fat and out of shape and not training. I was still being random drug tested by UK AD. Really? That's why I tested positive twice for cocaine. And everyone said, no, you never get him back. The boxing water control spending my license in the UK for the cocaine use. So I had a court case looking at ban for ban forever, basically. Suspension. The doctor made me medically unfit to fight. So that was after I forgot about that bit. When I was rescheduling the Klitschko to fight. The psychiatrist phoned up and says, look, he is medically unfit. He can't fight anybody. Don't want to live. Never mind fight. So I was medically deemed unfit to box suspended by the boxing water control for the cocaine use and I had an Andralone case on me and a refusal case. And by the way, it was racking up millions of dollars in lawyers face too. But I was so confident that I was going to, everything was going to be okay, because when I was down on my knees, I just knew that it was going to be okay. And everyone was like, what's the point in training and doing anything with you? When you're not, you can't do anything. You're not in a position to do it. I said, everything's going to be all right. Don't worry. Court case comes along in December. We go, they say, right, this court case is dragged on insufficient evidence. Get rid of it. We both agreed that we was going to call quits on the case. I got my way there. They pay their legal fees. I pay my legal fees. Done. That was a drugs case out the window finished. The suspension. I had a meeting with the border control in the UK and they said, look, if you can get past medically fit by a doctor mentally, then we'll reassess your case until then denied. So I said, right, no problem. Phoned up the psychiatrist, the same people who had spoke to all these doctors, three or four different doctor films. Dr. Jones, whoever else said, right, I need, I need reassessing reassess me. Bang past flying colours. I went back to the border control, handed in my certificate by all these different doctors, examinations, physical and mental. They said, we have no other choice but to give you a license reinstated. Bang. So it was three of the biggest obstacles in my life at once. We're all done within a month or two straight away. Then I just had the easy task of losing 160 pounds. Which if I could have got over all them other things, losing weight as a fighter was something that I'd done natural anyway. So then me and Ben set about losing this 160 pounds. And on the way back, I've spoke to Frank Warren and he became a promoter. Frank said, right, you've had a long time out the ring. You've abused your body. Let's get you four or five comeback fights just so you're ready. I said, okay, no problem. How did one comeback fight? How did one come back fight? How did one come back fight? How'd the one come back fight? How'd the other come back fight? I said to Frank, I don't need any more combat fights. Make the Wilder fight now. No, no, no, no, no. He said, let's have a couple more just in case. I said, I'm telling you, make the Wilder fight. So this is where people don't understand. I've picked Deontay Wilder. He didn't pick me. I picked him.