Former professional boxer Barry McGuigan paid tribute to his beautiful daughter Nika on Saturday on what would have been her 39th birthday.
Actress Danika, ’Nika’, who was best known for playing Danielle in Can’t Cope, Won’t Cope, died suddenly in 2019 aged 33, just five weeks after being diagnosed with bowel cancer. She had already battled acute lymphoid leukaemia when she was 11-years-old but beat the illness and lived a full and happy life until she was diagnosed a second time.
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Sharing a picture on social media Barry wrote: ‘Happy Heavenly Birthday to our beloved Nika RIP who would have been 39 today. We live in hope that we will be together again.’
Fans were quick to respond to Barry and share their love.
The father-of-four recently appeared on I’m A Celeb and got emotional when talking about his only daughter. While sitting around the campfire, Dean asked the Irish boxer if he goes to mass, to which Barry replied: “I used to go to church a lot but after my daughter… you know, not so much.”
Barry said: “She had leukaemia, when I was making the movie The Boxer with Daniel Day Lewis, three weeks from the end I had to leave because she’d been diagnosed with leukaemia, they thought she wasn't going to get better but she fought back and she won it.
"She had two years of chemo. She was good, she came back..."
Fighting back tears, Barry explained: “Stage four bowel cancer, five weeks. Five weeks and she died.”
English (US) ·