Wright: Cruel stepdad made me face a wall during Match of Day
EX-FOOTBALLER IanWright has revealed that his violent stepfather stopped him watching the show he now fronts as part of regular “torture”.
The former Arsenal and England striker was made to stand facing the wall while Match of the Day was on in a punishment he likened to Guantanamo Bay.
Ian said: “The wall was horrible. It was bloody freezing cold and at the time I was very asthmatic.
“The bed was up against the wall, so I was lying right next to it and my ears were being covered. It was a horrible, claustrophobic thing. I don’t like thinking about it.”
Wright’s biological father left when he was a toddler and he grew up on an estate in Lewisham, south-east London, with his brothers Morris and Nicky, their mother Nesta and an abusive stepfather.
Ian, 57, tells the latest issue of Radio
Times, on sale today: “Every time I’m on and the music starts, I get a feeling, because that was pure cruelty. He did it just because he could.
“In one way it’s empowering – look at how Match of the Day first came into my life and what I’m doing now.”
Ian has made a BBC documentary about domestic violence called
Home Truths.
In it he speaks to abused partners, abused children struggling to come to terms with it as adults, and abused children who turned into abusive adults.
Some 1.6 million women have experienced domestic abuse in Britain and in 90 per cent of cases, children were present.
●●Home Truths, BBC One, May 6, 9pm.