‘I was born in the wrong body’

A 1997 photo of WBC heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis, right, and his promoter Frank Maloney, as they celebrate his victory over Oliver McCall at the Hilton Hotel in Las Vegas. File photo: Jeff Scheid

A 1997 photo of WBC heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis, right, and his promoter Frank Maloney, as they celebrate his victory over Oliver McCall at the Hilton Hotel in Las Vegas. File photo: Jeff Scheid

Published Aug 11, 2014

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London - Former boxing promoter Frank Maloney is undergoing a sex change, according to a newspaper interview published Sunday.

The 61-year-old Maloney, who guided Lennox Lewis to the world heavyweight title in the 1990s, is now living as a woman by the name of Kellie, Britain's Sunday Mirror reported.

The twice-married Maloney ended an illustrious career last October and told the paper about undergoing hormone treatment for two years in preparation for a sex change operation.

“I was born in the wrong body and I have always known I was a woman,” Maloney was quoted as saying by the Mirror. “I can't keep living in the shadows. That is why I am doing what I am today. Living with the burden any longer would have killed me.

“What was wrong at birth is now being medically corrected. I have a female brain. I knew I was different from the minute I could compare myself to other children. I wasn't in the right body. I was jealous of girls.”

Maloney said a boxing career helped bring in enough money to walk away from the sport and live a new life as a woman.

“It was something that I was determined to suppress and keep wrapped up because I didn't want to be seen different,” Maloney said.

“(Boxing) took up all of my time. It gave me a complete focus. It was something I thought I had to be successful in because I thought if I failed in that, where do I go?” - Sapa-AP

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