Boxing promoter Frank Maloney has revealed that he has spent the last year living as a woman called Kellie.
The retired professional teamed up with Lennox Lewis in the 1980s before helping the Brit clinch the world heavyweight title in 1993.
Maloney, who is undergoing gender reassignment, has revealed that in her mind she was always female and could not live with the "burden" any longer.
"I was born in the wrong body and I have always known I was a woman," she told 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 has undergone hormone therapy, voice coaching and hair removal electrolysis.
