Nigel Benn (20 page)

Dermot is the oldest. He used to work for me, and for my Dad, and he's a real grafter. He's a very happy-go-lucky guy, though, just going through life trying to enjoy himself without hurting anybody else. What he does need to do, though, is to learn to swim. He was round my house a while ago when we all ganged up on him and threw him in the pool. He starts swimming like the man from Atlantis —underwater! I had to jump in wearing all my clothes and rescue him! So that Christmas,
all he got from his brothers was some armbands and a pair of flip-flops!

John I was in the army with, which I just loved. He's such fun to be around, really funny guy. But he works hard, too, a real law-abiding citizen. Danny's very quiet, but you know what they say about the quiet ones — silent, but deadly! He's just had a lovely little boy who he's called Orlando.

Mark's the real character of the family — a real Arthur Daley, making jokes about everyone and everything. I don't see him very often, which is a real shame. And Anthony, he's my kid brother and the real brain-box of the family. He's the most intelligent brother I've ever seen! I was so proud of him when I went to see him at his graduation, all decked out in one of those flat hats and everything. He's done so well for himself, I'll be asking him for sub soon! He spent a couple of years living at my house, a while back. The funniest thing about Anthony is that he's the spitting image of Lennox Lewis. People come up to him and ask him for his autograph, which sends him berserk — probably because he's not got Lennox's money!

But the people who've kept this tight-knit family unit together are my Mum and Dad. My Mum is the best in the world. She's spent so many years looking after people, that she doesn't like to be without kids all around her. She went through so much stuff when I was at school, I really put her through it, so I am so in debt to her. She has the most beautiful soul, my mother, the loveliest nature anyone could have.

And my Dad, he's the old power-house, he rules the roost. We argue like cats and dogs, sometimes, but at the end of the day he's always been the one that wants the best for me. All through my career he's been right behind me, weeding out the wrong 'uns, and making me get rid of them. He knows what he's talking about, my Dad — like with my trainers, the only one he ever really liked was Jimmy Tibbs, and there's no doubt he was right that Jimmy was my best ever trainer. He works hard, because he likes to keep his mind occupied. I'm lucky to have a Dad with such integrity, who speaks his mind and is always looking out for me.

These days, I do have to choose my friends more carefully. My wife Carolyne helps me to do that, and so does my agent, David Simones. David is a lovely, lovely guy whom I've known for a long time now. Never once has David tried to harm me, he has always been absolutely loyal, he always showed me utter respect and now eleven years down the road we're still together. He's a good man, and I love him to death. I'm also lucky enough to have good friends like Dave and Sandra Maddox, and my dear, dear friends Wayne and Karen. Together, they've helped me forge my new life, one which is completely separate from my wild, wonderful, turbulent boxing career.

M
y life has been a constant roller-coaster ride, full of ups and downs, not only in my career, but also in my personal life. I’ve reached heights of happiness and depths of depression. Things have happened to me in my life that make me want to laugh with joy, and other things have made me want to break down and cry — or worse.

At the centre of everything is Carolyne, the most wonderful, compassionate woman I have ever known. When I first met her, I knew that she was different in every way to the women I had known before. From the beginning, she was interested only in the real Nigel Benn, the man behind the image. So many people come up and want to be your friend because they want something from you. Carolyne never asked me for anything.

We have been through some terrible, traumatic times together, and she has always been there for me. Only Carolyne understands the pain I’ve been through — I’m not talking about the pain in the
ring, but the unbearable emotional pain you feel in your soul when you find yourself caught in the whirlwind of feelings that can inflict themselves on the life of a man who loves his family more than life itself.

After I split from Sharron, my mind was in turmoil. The depth of my feelings for Carolyne was so strong, but so, too, was my love for my children, Dominic, Sadé and Renée, and half of me wanted my relationship with Sharron to work out, just for their sake. Man, it was ripping me apart. The pain was too much for me to bear. Throughout it all, Carolyne was there beside me. It was her that soaked up all the pain from me when I was going through my lowest point in LA. She took all the hurt from me.

There were times when I was so distraught I’d find myself going back to Sharron. When I think how much that must have hurt Carolyne, it makes me want to weep. But she took it in her stride, and she never did anything to make me think she was anything other than the most wonderful woman in the world.

On one occasion, out in LA, we went through one of those terrible traumatic patches. I told Carolyne that I wanted to try and make it work with Sharron, for the sake of the kids. Carolyne swallowed her pride and accepted it — she was upset, of course, but she acted in such an honourable way.

I had given a load of money — about £300,000 — to Carolyne to look after. After she’d flown back to England from LA, she wrote out a cheque for the
money and gave it to my brother John. I was so messed up at the time that I never even thought about the money, but when John told me what she’d done, I was amazed. I’ve known so many people who would just have kept the cash — it made me realise what a special woman she was. Our split only lasted a week — I just didn’t understand at the time how strong my love for her was.

And that wasn’t the only time we’d broken up. On another occasion, I went out to Ibiza and Sharron was there, and I was in such a state I decided I wanted to try and work things out again. Carolyne decided to move out, but she packed all her clothes in black binliners because she didn’t want to take anything from me — not even a few suitcases. I finally came to my senses, though, and tracked her down, and she moved back six weeks later.

Our relationship has been so tempestuous, like only the relationship between two people who love each other with all their heart can be. In the early years, it was especially volatile, but now the strength of our love has shown itself for what it is, and we live together with our family in such happiness.

A lot of people are trying to break me and Carolyne up, but it’ll never happen. We’ll never be parted, and I mean that —
never.
We’re too much alike, and we understand each other perfectly. Even though I’ve made a lot of mistakes, my life would be meaningless without her. Since I’ve been with Carolyne, she’s changed me dramatically.
She’s taught me about respect, and about loyalty — especially to women. She’s instilled something profound and true within me, something I have to learn to make grow.

I sometimes think to myself, ‘How would I ever deal with it if she left me?’ I don’t think I
could
deal with it. Now it’s up to me. She’s taken me as far as she can, and now I’m carrying on with my counselling again. I’m far from being mad, or anything like it, but sometimes I do things I regret — not physically, but mentally — and so often I end up hurting the woman I love, when she’s never done me any harm. Maybe I’m still going through the transition from boyhood to manhood.

But despite the difficult periods, we’ve had some wonderful, happy times together, too. In the early days, we’d go to clubs and have a brilliant time. Now when I hear the music from those times, it brings it all back to me. They were some of the happiest times of my life. I’m always playing a track and saying, ‘Hey, Carolyne, do you remember this one?’ And she’ll smile, and nod, and it’ll remind us both of those days.

The most wonderful thing about Carolyne is how she looks after Dominic, Sadé and Renée, my kids by Sharron. My situation with Sharron is so difficult. When the kids go to see their mum, I hope she doesn’t bad-mouth me. But kids grow up. Once, when I was slagging off Sharron, Sadé said, ‘Don’t say that, that’s my mum you’re talking about.’ And from that day on, I’ve never said a word about Sharron to the kids. So as I say, one day the kids will grow up, and then they’ll
understand.

She’s with a bloke called Clem now, and I’ve got no problem with him. My kids respect him and they talk about him in my house. If he spoke to me, I’d speak to him. No problem. But Sharron’s another matter — I’ve even heard that she’s been known to use my name to get into clubs and stuff.
My
name
!
So if you’re reading my book, Sharron, don’t use my name. Don’t call yourself Mrs Benn! Clem’s name is Clem St Clair, or something like that, not Clem St Benn!

In the middle of all this is Carolyne, my soulmate, my perfect woman. She was only a young woman when I met her — twenty years old. Suddenly she’s having to take on my kids, court cases. I’m not going to get better than her, because she accepted my three kids as well as me. The most brilliant thing is how the kids love her, they really love her to death. When Carolyne said once that she was going away for a week, Sadé cried. She loves Carolyne badly — they all do. They’ve known each other since Dominic was about five. They were like babies when they first met, so now they really know her.

And she’s never raised her hands to the kids, ever. She really shouts at them sometimes, and Sadé cries when she does, because she loves her so much, and she doesn’t like upsetting her. Carolyne is like a mum to them, and gives them all her affection. I’m determined to give them the proper upbringing that they deserve.

I had to go through a terrible custody battle over the kids. I can’t tell you how painful it was for
me, having to get up in front of a judge and try to explain why my kids should live with me and not their mother. At the end of the court case, the judge gave me a really hard time — and Sharron, too. She was up in that dock for ages. And to make it worse, everyone knows about it. If a normal person has problems, they deal with it at home. If I have problems, everybody reads about it in the papers.

But Carolyne’s helped me through all that. She is my backbone, and thanks to her I now have the most fantastic family life, living with five wonderful children.

Dominic is the eldest. He’s 12 now, and he’s a big, strong boy — built like his dad! He’s smart, too; I sit down with him, and try to teach him about life. I try to guide him in the right direction. I don’t want to control his life, but I do want him and all the other kids to know that if they ever want my help, it’s there for them. As and when they go out into the big wide world, I want them to have understood a bit from Dad. I’ve come up from the street — I got a degree in streetwise — and I want to pass a bit of that on to Dominic, so he knows he’s not going out there blind. I don’t know what the street’s going to be like in another ten to fifteen years time, I don’t even want to think about that, but I do want my kids to be prepared for it.

Deep down inside, Sadé is a very shy, sensitive girl. She’s a really lovely person, and I can see that she hates hurting our feelings. Of all my kids, I think Sadé’s the one who’s feeling the whole relationship situation the most, but she’s slowly growing out of it. She’s definitely been the most
affected by it, though. So with Sadé, you have to go easy on her — but you still have to be firm, because she’s the kind of girl who could easily run wild if you let her go.

Renée is a beautiful, happy-go-lucky little girl, but she and Sadé fight all the time. They argue a lot, but if I see it happening, I have to come down hard. I don’t know what happens in the other house, but I don’t want to see two sisters who love each other fight so much. Any problems they’ve got between them, they leave at my doorstep. But little Renée, I love her to death, I really do.

Conor and India, Carolyne’s and my twins, are just wonderful. The day they were born, 28 September 1996, I was the happiest man in the world. Ever since I’d been with Carolyne, we had so desperately wanted to have children together — at one stage we were having sex three times a day, just so that Carolyne would get pregnant. We took a trip to Hawaii so we could get away from everything, from our chaotic lifestyles, to relax and try for a baby. But it just wasn’t working. She even had a course of IVF treatment which meant having to have injections every day, which added to the trauma we were experiencing. And as for me — on a few occasions, I started having what I can only describe as phantom pregnancies. I would become so sure that Carolyne was pregnant I’d find that I couldn’t eat a thing. I was even having morning sickness — it was weird. Then, as soon as Carolyne started her period, I began eating again!

I can’t even begin to describe the happiness I felt when Carolyne told me she was pregnant —
and with twins. It was one of the most wonderful days of my life, and I literally had tears in my eyes. It was the one thing that Carolyne and I had been wishing for, the thing that would make our lives complete, and nothing could bring us off the cloud we were on.

The twins are so beautiful — Conor looks like me and India looks like Carolyne. And it’s so funny, watching the two together, it’s just unbelievable. They’re always together, playing, looking out for each other, looking after each other. When they were born they were so little — India was 4lb 3oz, and Conor was 5lb 7oz. Once, when they were really young, India was in bed, and she started trembling like a leaf. Conor started rocking his cot and looking over at India, who was shivering uncontrollably. I took India into my bed, but she was still shaking, so at about 5.00am I took her to the hospital. The doctor had to grab her leg to try to find a vein in her foot. India looked up at me, and her little eyes were saying, ‘Daddy, daddy, it’s hurting me!’

I just burst out crying, I didn’t know what to do. I told the doctor, ‘Hurry up, will you? Fucking hurry up!’ I just lost it. When your kids are suffering like that, your mind goes. I know he was doing his job, but I was desperate — my daughter’s looking me in the eye and saying, ‘Daddy, he’s hurting me, please stop him …’ It’s enough to drive a man crazy!

I love our daily routine, in which I take the kids to school and pick them up again. I cook their dinner for them, everything. That’s where I am at
the moment, just caring for my beautiful wife and family.

Carolyne became my wife on 4 June 1997, and in that one simple act she gave meaning and direction to my life.