Heartbreaking losses bringing I'm A Celeb Coleen Rooney and Barry McGuigan closer together

On Monday's I'm A Celebrity episode, Barry McGuigan opened about about - and immediately brought the nation to tears.

The 63-year-old boxer broke down as he had an emotional conversation with his campmates about his actress daughter, who died at the age of 33 after losing her battle with cancer.

Danika - Nika to her family - was first diagnosed with leukaemia aged just 11 and was forced to undergo brutal chemotherapy treatment. It impacted on her education, as she was out of school for 18 months.

Barry revealed to his campmates: "[Danika] had leukaemia, when I was making the with Daniel Day Lewis. Three weeks from the end I had to leave because she'd been diagnosed with leukaemia. They thought she wasn't going to get better but she fought back and she won it. She had two years of chemo."

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As tears started rolling down his face, Tulisa hugged him tightly as ex-pro Oti Mabuse rubbed his back. "Thank you, you're all so lovely, I really appreciate it," an emotional Barry told them.

Later in the same episode, the dad-of-four opened up to Loose Women's Jane Moore about Danika's second brush with cancer, which she learned she had just weeks before it claimed her life.

"She had pains in her tummy but she was making the movie, she put it off and went to the doctor, called us all in," he recalled. "Stage 4 bowel cancer, five weeks, five weeks she died."

Danika, who appeared in films including Philomena, Mammal and Wildlife, died surrounded by her "devastated" family in 2019. She left behind dad Barry, mum Sandra and her three brothers: Shane, Jake and Blane.

Barry had previously opened up about the "sledgehammer" moment he and wife Sandra first heard of Nika's childhood diagnosis. "Finding out that Danika had leukaemia was like being hit with a sledgehammer," he told in 2005.

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"There's nothing worse than your child getting sick. No amount of fighting in the ring could have prepared me for it."

In a heartbreaking conversation with her dad, . "The word "dynamo" doesn't do her justice," he said at the time. "With Danika the glass is never half-empty and never half-full. It's completely full. In fact, it's probably spilling over."

And in 2021, two years after her tragic death, her dad said he will "never recover" from his loss. "I lost my daughter two years ago, and it’s been shocking. I’ll never recover from it," he told Late Late Show host Ryan Tubridy. "I know there are loads of parents who have lost their children and I know how devastating that is, how hard it is. My heart goes out to all of them.

"They will understand just the pain of everyday, it's the same. She was such an important part of our lives in everything, even my four grandchildren - my latest grandchild is Mila Nika McGuigan. And every time I look at them I think of her and she loved those kids. She loved Tadhg, who is my first grandchild, who she loved and spent so much time with.

"She was such a family person," he added.

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One of Barry's I'm A Celeb campmates who will be able to empathise is , who has already Rosie McLoughlin. Rosie died in 2013 at the age of 14 after being born with the rare brain disorder Rett syndrome, which causes severe disabilities.

Coleen's parents Colette and Tony McLoughlin adopted Rosie when she was two and cared for her for the whole of her short life, including as her health declined. In Coleen's Disney+ documentary, she revealed: "Rosie, she struggled. She couldn't walk and she couldn't talk. She would be in pain and sick but she would still put a smile on her face.

"Rett syndrome is a genetic disorder, sometimes she used to force a laugh out, I think to make me mum and dad happy. Gradually her brain wasn't functioning and she couldn't eat anymore, she couldn't crawl anymore."

Opening up about her sister on , Coleen said: "I don't usually get worked up, it takes me a lot. Even when Rosie died, I kept it together for me mum and dad.

"When you're away and in different environments, it's when you stop. She was 14 when she died, she'd be 26 now," she said, adding: "It's hard to lose a child, I've always said that… So we're lucky to have what we've got."

As Coleen herself started tearing up, the mum-of-four added: "To lose a child is the worst thing that could ever happen to anyone. But when you look back now, she gave us so many good years of happiness and love."

*I'm A Celebrity continues tonight at 9pm on ITV

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