Boxing promotor Frank Maloney undergoes a sex change and is now known as Kellie

Celebrities including Stan Collymore and Irvine Welsh have tweeted their support for Lennox Lewis's former manager.

Boxing promoter and manager Frank Maloney is in the process of undergoing a sex change and is now living life as a woman called Kellie.

Maloney's story comes as a major shock to those who know her from the masculine world of boxing, but she has revealed to the Sunday Mirror that, at 61, it was either time to face up to her true identity or face the fact that living a lie would have killed her.

Maloney told the paper that she has undergone "hormone therapy, hundreds of hours of hair removal electrolysis, voice coaching and specialist counselling."

I wish Frank Maloney, now Kellie all the very best. Being who he wants to be after 61 years. Nobody deserves to begrudge him happiness. — Stan Collymore (@StanCollymore) August 10, 2014

"I was born in the wrong body and I have always known I was a woman,” Kellie told the paper. “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."

Good luck to Frank Maloney aka Kellie. Heart rending read in The People today. I hope she finds solace in her new world. — Richard Keys (@richardajkeys) August 10, 2014

All the best to Kellie, formerly Frank Maloney, in her new life. Great achievements happen in boxing, as elsewhere, irrespective of gender. — Irvine Welsh (@IrvineWelsh) August 10, 2014

“The feeling of wanting to be like and dress like a woman has always been there,” she said. “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. 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.”