Tyson Fury tells Rolling Stone for last 4 months he's been snorting cocaine, drinking, getting 'fat as a pig'

In a fascinating, alarming and often intensely sad trip inside his own mind, beleaguered heavyweight champion Tyson Fury opened up to Rolling Stone magazine during a recent interview, saying that for the last four months, he has been snorting cocaine, drinking every day, getting "fat as a pig." Fury also said he has suffered through vicious bouts of depression, wanting to kill himself at times.

Fury, who told Rolling Stone that he has been sober for the last three days, blames the bulk of his personal problems on boxing, and the notoriety he has attained because of it.

Still, he believes his personal woes should not be a reason to strip him of the heavyweight titles he won in a shocking upset of longtime champion Wladimir Klitschko last November in Dusseldorf, Germany.

Soon after winning the lineal title and the WBO, WBA and IBF belts, Fury agreed to a rematch with Klitschko, and was subsequently stripped of his IBF title for not facing mandatory challenger Vyacheslav Glazkov.

The 6-foot-9 inch fighter (25-0, 18 KOs) missed a press conference for the rematch because he claimed his car had broken down.

Late last month, Paste BN Sports and other media outlets reported that Fury had tested positive for cocaine on Sept. 22, and his fight with Klitschko was canceled after he was diagnosed as being "medically unfit" to fight.

It's likely, due to the positive test conducted by the Voluntary Anti-Doping Association (VADA), that Fury will be stripped of the two belts he still holds. He also faces suspension by the British Boxing Board of Control.

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Making matters worse, Fury, 28, infamously tweeted a photoshopped image of himself this week sitting, a la Tony Montana in Scarface, behind a mountain of cocaine, and later announced his retirement from boxing, then retracted it. "Hahahaha u think you will get rid of the GYPSYKING that easy!!! I'm here to stay," he tweeted.

A Manchester native, Fury claims he is also a victim of racism for being a member of the Irish Travelers, known in the U.S. as gypsies, a nomadic, tight-knit, religious group of people who travel around the U.K., work construction and other jobs and often stage fights among themselves. Two other U.K. fighters who are Travelers are undefeated WBO middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders and former middleweight champion Andy Lee.

Fury says he's gotten no credit for beating a great champion like Klitschko simply because of his heritage.

"It's been a witch hunt ever since I won that world title," Fury told Rolling Stone, "because of my background, because of who I am and what I do - there's hatred for Travelers and gypsies around the world.

"I can't do nothing in my life that's any good to the general people because I'll never be accepted for who I am and what I am."

As recently as this year, he said, he and his wife and their three children were refused service from a restaurant due to their being Travelers. "I'm the heavyweight champion of the world and I've been told 'Sorry mate you can't come in, no Travelers allowed,' " he said.

"I feel more racism now in 2016 than any slave, any foreign immigrant ever did in the 1800s. Listen, when Muhammad Ali threw his gold medal away in the 1960s for being mistreated and abused, this is what I'm doing today. I'm throwing all my world titles in the bin because I ain't accepted in society for being a Traveler in 2016."

Fury, who was named after former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson, said in the Rolling Stone interview he has battled depression for years. He said that he is currently undergoing psychiatric care and sometimes feels suicidal. "They say I've got a version of bipolar," he says. "I'm a manic depressive. I just hope someone kills me before I kill myself."

He said he became overwhelmed by depression in May, abandoned his training camp in Holland and began a downward spiral. "From that day forward, I've never done any training," he says. "I've been out drinking, Monday to Friday to Sunday, and taking cocaine. I can't deal with it and the only thing that helps me is when I get drunk out of me mind."

Fury believes he is being persecuted from every corner, and as a result has been unfairly and excessively drug-tested.

"They tested me about six times within a few weeks. Only recently three days ago last week they came to my house at 1:30 in the morning, tested me, and came back at 9 a.m. to test me again," he said. "What is this? Do you understand the treatment I'm getting off these people? They're driving me mad.

"It is crazy that's what's going on but listen, I don't really care. They've won. They've got what they wanted. That's it. I'm as fat as pig. I'm 285 pounds, 290 pounds. It is what it is. I've been out. I've been an emotional wreck. I've been on a mission. I've been out trying to handle me life."

Fury told Rolling Stone he hates boxing now, though he would not admit that he will retire for good.

I used to love boxing when I was a kid. It was my life. All the way through it was my life. You finally get to where you need to be and it becomes a big mess," he said. "I hate boxing now. I wouldn't even go across the road to watch a world title fight. That's what it's done to me.

"I don't even want to wake up. I hope I die every day. And that's a bad thing to say when I've got three children and a lovely wife isn't it? But I don't want to live anymore. And if I could take me own life - and I wasn't a Christian - I'd take it in a second. I just hope someone kills me before I kill me self. I'll have to spend eternity in hell.

"I'm in a very bad place at the moment. I don't know whether I'm coming or going. I don't know what's going to happen to me. I don't know if I'm going to see the year out to be honest."

Fury said he has been fighting the demons that have plagued him for years.

"I just can't see a light at the end of the tunnel if I'm honest. It was driving my family apart. My wife says she can't live with me because I'm a lunatic. I just … I don't know," he said. ". . . I'll lose my family, my wife, my kids. Everything. All due to boxing. I wish to God on everything, that I never got into boxing as a child. I wish this never happened and I had just done a routine job and a routine life. This is how it's got me all of it."

(Photo of Tyson Fury from 2015 by Paul Ellis, AFP/Getty Images)