Pairings come in the unlikeliest places, but Deirdre Kelly and Kellie Maloney have become fast friends on the new series of Celebrity Big Brother.
It’s the first full day in the Celebrity Big Brother house and Kellie and Dee are bonding. Kellie asks Dee if being on TV has changed her life and Dee says yes, some good ways and some negative. Kellie responds that she can’t believe the reception she got coming into the Celebrity Big Brother house, she tells Dee that for most of her life she wanted to beat her gender issues.
Dee asks her if she feels like she has won. Kellie replies that she feels she has won and lost at the same time. Kellie adds, ‘Frank wasn’t a bad person.’ She also says that she has tried to make her children understand that she is always going to be their dad, just their dad in a frock.
In October 2013, Kellie, known then as Frank, made the decision to retire from boxing explaining that he had ‘fallen out of love’ with the sport. However, Kellie now cites her transition as the real reason. Kellie explained how she has felt trapped in the wrong body since she was a child. She is now a year into the transition period and is learning to live life as a woman – a life she kept a secret due to the macho world she lived in as a boxing promoter.
Twice-married and parent of three daughters, she wanted the transition to be private to protect her family and to build up the confidence to reveal her new identity. She planned to reveal her new life in a book once she had fully transitioned, however, she was exposed by a journalist and made the decision to go public with her transition
During the mayoral election in London, 2004, Maloney, ran as the UKIP candidate, was criticised for comments made against the LGBT community after it emerged that Maloney failed to campaign in Camden because there wer “too many gays”.
Maloney tried to justify these remarks telling the BBC, ‘I don’t want to campaign around gays…I don’t think they do a lot for society…what I have a problem with is them openly flaunting their sexuality.’
