Maloney: ‘I was wrong to say gay couples shouldn’t raise kids’

Kellie Maloney has admitted that remarks about gay people that she made in the past were “wrong”.

During her 2010 campaign to become a UKIP MP, the well-known boxing manager and promoter – then known as Frank Maloney – argued that same-sex couples shouldn’t be allowed to raise children.

“I accept comments I made in the past were wrong,”  Maloney told EQ View. “If you knew Frank Maloney, if you were there when I made those remarks – you would have seen the smirk on my face. I knew it was wrong but I was saying it in jest. The UKIP councillors working for me at the time were gay – they told me it was silly, it was a mistake.”

Maloney, 61, who recently revealed that she plans to complete her transition from male to female in the New Year, went on to explain that her experiences as a trans woman have helped her to empathise with the struggles faced by gay people over the years.

“We’re probably where the gay community was 30 years ago, tolerated but we’re not fully accepted,” she said of the trans community. “It makes me understand what the gay community went through.”

Maloney publicly retired from boxing late last year. She split from her second wife in 2012 and has three daughters, two from her first marriage and one from her second.