'They believed I had demons in me' - British boxing star reflects on 'frightening' childhood

Conor Benn has opened up on his childhood and how his upbringing wasn’t as rosy as it may have seemed from the outside.

Benn is preparing for his huge rematch with Chris Eubank Jr. at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium live on DAZN PPV on Saturday, having dropped a unanimous decision to his bitter a rival in a Fight of the Year contender at the same venue in April.

BUY NOW HERE: Eubank Jr. vs Benn II live and exclusive on DAZN PPV for £24.99 / $59.99

The 29-year-old moved to Spain with his parents and siblings as a young child and he didn’t want for any material items in the lavish surroundings of the family home.

But his education and relationship with the church was a different story, and it left him with some deep mental scars.

"I lived in a beautiful home - a beautiful mansion - and went to private school," Benn told BBC Sport.

"It was very heavily Christian, very religious. School was very extreme and church was very extreme."

Benn was regularly told that ‘the world was coming to an end’ and those experiences certainly left their mark on the boxer.

"It was very traumatic," he added.

“The world was coming to an end every year and we were on our hands and knees, praying.

"You were waking up in the morning and not knowing whether the anti-Christ was here. It was frightening as a kid, for sure.

“They [the school] believed I had demons in me as a kid and, for me, that was really hard to try to understand

“Because you can’t sit still in class, to the point they believe that you have demons in you, and it was the hardest thing to understand.

“I’m thinking ‘what’s wrong with me? Why me?’.

"As a kid, you're easily influenced by people in these positions of power. Looking back - because I don't often reflect on it - you think it's pretty evil."

He admits that it wasn’t until his early 20s that he could make peace with it all and the trauma of his childhood took a lot of coming to terms with.

When asked if it felt a bit like a cult, Benn replied: “Yeah, of course.

“How can they say to a child ‘we think you are demon possessed’?

“It wasn’t until I got to the age of 22 or 23 that I thought ‘you actually need help’ - in terms of trying to process that there is actually nothing wrong with you.

“You’re actually all right.”

Watch Eubank Jr. vs Benn 2 only on DAZN

Chris Eubank Jr and Conor Benn's much anticipated rematch is live and exclusive on DAZN PPV this Saturday, November 15. Buy the PPV for £24.99 UK / $59.99 US. 

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