Transgender Kellie Maloney ended a potential romance when the friend said they would be a perfect match - if she was still Frank.
Ten years ago, the 71-year-old transitioned from tough-talking boxing promoter Frank to blonde Kellie. And in 2017 she became close to an English woman, with the pair splitting their time together between the UK and Kellie’s home in Portugal. After more than a year, Kellie ended it when her friend said: “We would have a perfect relationship if you were Frank.”
Kellie tried to take her own life in October 2018. She was found by a friend at her Algarve home and was taken to hospital where she awoke chained to a bed. When eldest daughter Emma, 47, visited, Kellie recalled: “She said, ‘Dad why would you do this, we need you in our life, all three of us’. I realised I still had a responsibility as a parent.” She checked into a psychiatric hospital in Faro, which she describes as “the most terrifying experience of my life”.
Kellie said: “That was probably the shock I needed to get my life in order. Up to then I was probably looking for someone to come into my life. I then let someone into my life that I shouldn’t have let in. Nothing sexual happened. It could have. That’s when I realised I don’t need people in my life because I have feelings and I don’t need those feelings turned upside down. It’s far safer to cuddle Yogi Bear (one of her three dogs ) than a human.”
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AMAZON)Talking about her suicide bid, she added: “I came out of that dark tunnel a brighter person. But I know I could slip back in there. I’ve learned not to drink too much unless I’m in the right frame of mind and to not let negativity into my life.”
Kellie was a trailblazer when she went public in the Sunday Mirror. A decade on she says she honestly doesn’t know if she has a sexual preference, adding: “But I can say that if I walk into a room and a light goes on in my head then I’ll pursue that person.
“I’ve also learned a relationship is not just about sex, there’s so much more. Does the gender matter? Only if you want society to judge you, and I don’t care about society judging me any more. So if it was the right man or the right woman, yeah. But also you get to a certain age and also I think the hormones killed that sort of sex drive in me.”
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Bongarts/Getty Images)As Britain’s biggest, brashest boxing promoter, Frank guided Lennox Lewis to undisputed heavyweight championship glory in the 1990s. Frank features in Amazon documentary Four Kings about Lewis, Frank Bruno, Nigel Benn and Chris Eubank. And Frank appears in Knock Out Blonde: The Kellie Maloney Story which was also released in the summer.
Kellie no longer minds watching her old self but admits she was unable to even look at a photo when she transitioned. Chatting in her back garden in Herne Bay, Kent, she described how Frank buried himself in work but all the while was suffering with his deep secret.
“I’ve learned to make jokes about myself but I couldn’t as Frank, in such a macho world, as it would’ve been a sign of weakness,” she said. “Now I see it as a sign of strength.”
She says she has taken the good parts of Frank and Kellie and combined them. “To me that’s very important because Frank never died,” she said. “All he did was change the outside wrappings and got his body to match her brain.”
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Icon Sport via Getty Images)She has happily left behind his arrogance and careless, bullying nature, as well as his anger, she says, and is more tolerant. “I’ve been told I’m a lot kinder as Kellie,” she said. As well as being a proud grandparent of four, she says she is now closer to daughters Emma, Sophie, 28, and Libby, 22, and good friends with ex-wife Tracey. Kellie says she does not correct her male friends if they forget to call her Kellie while viewing football together.
But her cheeky side really shines when she’s having fun with women. “My female friends, none of them knew Frank, so it’s great. They only see me as Kellie,” she said. “It’s fascinating as I can read the male thought process. If a man approaches my female friends I can tell them what’s the next move the guy will make.
“Especially in Vilamoura (in Portugal) when the golfers are out, you can read them like a book. A friend asked me, ‘How do you know all this?’ I said, ‘Well, unfortunately, I was once one of them’.”
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Sunday Mirror)As well as her 60kg black Russian terrier Yogi Bear, she has two Airedale terriers called Teddy Bear and Whinnie Bear, plus seven pigs. “My companions are my dogs and my animals,” she said. “I’m not going to say I’ve not been out on dinner dates but I don’t want to take it any further. I don’t feel I need it in my life.”
Kellie says one of her big fears is dementia, which her 91-year-old mum suffers from. After 60 years inside the wrong body, she wants to ensure she has as long as possible as Kellie. But she does not fear death as Frank did. “I think it’s an honour to grow old, not everybody gets to that stage. “It’s a real honour to grow old as my true self. I maybe wouldn’t have got to this stage if I hadn’t transitioned. I was living a lie most of my life and that catches up with you, I think the stress would have killed me.”
Smiling, she added: “I’d like to live to 100 and something and be the oldest trans person in the world. I think I’m one of the luckiest people in the world, I’m at total peace and have contentment. I don’t think there are many people who have that. My friends tell me they wish they could have that.” One scene in the Knock Out Blonde documentary shows Frank walking out of the shower naked.
Kellie asked the producer to remove it but was told: “That’s one of the best parts, we have to keep that because at the end of the documentary you don’t have that little bit on your body.”
Kellie chuckled: “I laugh at it all now and I just think there’s nothing else for me to achieve in life. I’ve lived a full life. And how many people can really say they’ve actually lived a very full life? I’m certainly not ready to go yet.”
English (US) ·