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For three decades, hard-nosed Frank Maloney ruled as one of the kings of the macho world of boxing .

The tough-talking promoter and manager guided Lennox Lewis to become Britain’s first undisputed World Heavyweight Champ for nearly a century.

Millions watched as he celebrated in the ring with the boxer after his 1992 triumph. He became a household name.

But outside the ropes, Frank was embroiled in a secret, agonising fight of his own – one he feared he could never win, let alone share with the world.

Until now.

Because today, through the Sunday Mirror, Frank, 61, reveals he is preparing to change sex and is living as a woman called Kellie.

For live reaction to this story, click here.

(Image: Sunday Mirror)

In an astonishing emotional interview, she tells how she has felt trapped in the wrong body since she was a child and how she finally made her courageous decision to become a woman.

The twice-married dad of three also reveals the anguish of breaking the bombshell news to his second wife – and the fears of a backlash from the testosterone-fuelled boxing world Frank left behind when he retired last year. But in the end, for Kellie, living as a woman has become a matter of life or death.

“I was born in the wrong body and I have always known I was a woman,” she says, her voice cracking with emotion.

“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.”

JEALOUS

“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.”

Londoner Kellie is now over a year into the transition period as she learns to cope living as a woman – a life she has kept under wraps because of the macho world she moved in.

In the past two years she has secretly undergone hormone therapy, hundreds of hours of hair removal electrolysis, voice coaching and specialist counselling.

NHS guidelines state a transsexual must spend two years as a female before they are permitted to undergo corrective surgery.

“The feeling of wanting to be like and dress like a woman has always been there,” she says. “I consciously made the decision that I wouldn’t dress like a woman but it was a constant urge.

“But I have never been able to tell anyone in boxing,” adds the person who made the careers of British,Commonwealth and European boxing champs, including former world ­cruiserweight title holder David Haye.

“Can you imagine me walking into a boxing hall dressed as a woman and putting an event on?

“I can imagine what they would scream at me. But if I had been in the theatre or arts world nobody would blink an eye about this transition.”

(Image: Action Images)

Today Kellie has become the highest profile figure ever from the world of sport to go public about having gender reassignment therapy.

But for more than a year as her desire to become a woman overwhelmed her, she lived as a virtual recluse, wrestling with her emotions on a daily basis. During her darkest hours she would phone helplines in America for counselling. Her harrowing ordeal also sparked crippling bouts of depression and heavy drinking.

She says: “My life was spiralling out of control. I was finding it harder to contain my desire. I was now doing the boxing ­business through instinct and memory. I used to shut myself away in the office. Thankfully, I had some good staff around me.

“But I was very unhappy. My temper was getting worse. I was determined it wouldn’t beat me, but I knew it would always be there.

“I remember having a row with a counsellor I was secretly talking to. All that I wanted him to say was that I wasn’t transsexual. He said ‘I can’t tell you that.’ I said ‘well how do you know I’m transsexual?’ and he said ‘because you keep ringing’. I checked myself into a private clinic where they dealt with drug, alcohol and depression issues. They were very good to me.

“They didn’t use a lot of medical advice. I only told them I was suffering. I didn’t tell them why. I couldn’t. The way I looked at it was that I would either beat it or kill myself.”

But deep inside, Kellie – who had managed Lennox Lewis from 1989 to 2001 – realised she had to get away from the world she knew and face the truth.

(Image: Reuters)

She ended her glittering career as Frank in October last year and told a shocked press conference: “I have fallen out of love with boxing. The sport has changed so much.

“So many boxers listen to the last person they meet and trainers who give time but invest no money are afforded too much power. My passion has been missing, my heart is no longer in the sport I loved so much.”

But Kellie now admits she was secretly preparing to retreat from the public eye for her gender transition.

She said: “I made the decision a long time ago but I retired from boxing because of my profile. I thought that what I wanted to do was to transition in a positive and private way. I closed my websites down, took my Facebook down and my Twitter account so that I could transition peacefully. The suicide rates from the pressure on a transsexual woman are very high and I didn’t want to get caught up in it.

“The boxing community can think whatever they want about me now. I have come to terms with my transition but I don’t understand it.

“I hope society will be open minded. I know I could have done my job in boxing as a female.”

Kellie now even believes promoting fights in the glitzy world of big time boxing allowed her feminine flamboyant side to come out – and she hoped the money she earned would help her to truly be herself one day.

(Image: Action Images)

She says: “I did all the Union Jack costume and the stunts because I was always prepared for the fact that the Lennox Lewis era was going to come to an end one day.

“It was an act and I was on stage. It allowed me to be outrageous. I knew it wasn’t going to last forever. I can never deny what I have achieved and I look back and I think how I was the only man to manage a British heavyweight champion.

“In the late 1990s I always thought I had a chance with Lennox Lewis to earn enough money to live a ­comfortable life, to go away and be myself. There was already part of me that was thinking of transitioning. That part of me wanted to do it.”

Kellie insists she has no intention of looking for a relationship in her new life. She says: “At this very moment I am preparing to live the rest of my life as a single person. I have no interest in physical sex with anybody. I have many more issues that I have to deal with and I don’t know what will happen down the road.

“I’ve lived with this all my life and I don’t understand it. Therefore I can’t expect anybody else to understand it,” she adds tearfully.

“But I want to go out there and help others going through this. For now, I am mentally preparing myself for the rest of my life.”