Celebrity Masterchef star Dillian Whyte has come a long way since beating up school bullies for sandwiches and sweet money
CELEBRITY MASTERCHEF star Dillian Whyte has come a long way since beating up school bullies for sandwiches and sweet money.
The Brixton bruiser, 31, stars in the celeb version of the show this summer, alongside former footballer Neil "Razor" Ruddock.
Watching the BBC cook-off will be hard to swallow if Whyte does not beat dangerous Colombian Oscar Rivas at London’s O2 Arena on Saturday night.
But, while wolfing down lunch at his training base in Loughborough, the food-lover revealed his appetite for battle.
Whyte - who revealed he once considered quitting boxing - said: “I’m a fighter by nature. I love to fight more than I know how to show love. It’s a weird thing.
“Kids at school and around my estate used to pay me to fight bullies for them. The bullies were older and bigger than me but I’ve always had the one-hit power. Always.
SWEET SUCCESS
“The payment could be sandwiches, it could be £2 — which you could buy a hell of a lot of sweets with back then.”
Whyte chomped through two plates of specially-prepared fuel during this interview, one loaded with sweet potatoes and rice and the other fish and vegetables.
He added: “When I was living at home with my mum Jane, I ate whatever she made — rice and peas, goat, fried dumplings and saltfish.
“I still eat what mum makes when I go home but now I’ll leave some things out because I know what I have to do.”
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Whyte’s 2015 loss to Anthony Joshua, where he ran out of gas, pushed him to start taking nutrition, rest and training more seriously.
He has won all nine fights since then and revealed: “I often say my coaches must sit down and plan to try to destroy me.
"They have come close a couple of times but haven’t been successful so far.”