The boxer was speaking to pupils on behalf of charity Gloves Up Knives Down
Boxer Natasha Jonas shared the heartbreaking moment she learned her cousin had died after being stabbed on a night out. The world champion fighter spoke to students from Progress School in Toxteth earlier today, May 8, as part of a collaboration with Liverpool charity, Gloves Up Knives Down.
Sharing the painful memory, she told students about her “devastation” at hearing the scream of her cousin’s mum on learning of his death. She said: “It was just when Liverpool won the Champions League, we were out celebrating, watching the match. I’d actually left because I didn’t want to stay out.
“But 10 minutes later I got a phone call, I needed to go back because the cousin that I was with had been stabbed. I’d gone to his mum’s, picked her up, gone to the hospital, an hour later he was pronounced dead.
“It was horrible for me as a cousin and as a family member, but it was devastating to hear the scream of his mum.”
While her own family has suffered the horrific effects of knife crime in recent years, she said boxing and professional sports more widely can be used as a way of trying to prevent crime in the city.
The 41-year-old said: “I think unfortunately in this city, it’s easy to fall into a life of crime and it’s probably seen as more popular than being an athlete. It’s something that young kids look towards to [get] notoriety – being infamous instead of famous.”
“I think it’s sad really because it has a wider impact. There’s kids now that will never be able to go to the USA, for instance, because of legal ramifications of what they’ve done [in the past]. It’s just something that we need to address as a city and come together to help make it stop.”
During her talk with the students, the Toxteth-based boxer took them back through some of her earlier struggles in education and how she found her love of sports thanks to a secondary school PE teacher that she had while she was studying in the Wirral.
Natasha has always been a natural sporting talent, and at one stage in her teenage years it looked like she was going to make it as a professional footballer. But when an injury abruptly cut her hopes short, she returned to Liverpool and began to focus her efforts into boxing.
While Natasha said she beat the odds to get to where she is today, she isn’t the only one in her family to have risen to the top of their profession. Her younger sister, Nikita Parris, has gone on to win the UEFA Women’s Euro 2022, the 2019–20 Champions League, and a number of domestic triumphs with Manchester City and Lyon.
In her closing message to the teenagers, Natasha said: “If I can give you a message, you work hard, be yourself, and never give up. But most of all, believe in yourself. Don’t let people’s expectations of what you can be, be your barriers.”
Besides her impassioned final message to the students, she said she is eager not to be “a celebrity that’d come [to a school], take a thousand pictures and then go away and they’d be back on the telly”.
Instead she is eager to play an active role in the community. She said: “I think for me personally, I just try and and be the person that that little Natasha needed to see. That means keeping coming back and not to be just the person on telly, to be seen, to be involved, to know that I’m reachable.”
Her incredible list of achievements includes holding unified WBC, WBO, and IBF light-middleweight and welterweight titles. She was also the first British female boxer to make it to the Olympics and the first woman to win the British Boxing Board of Control’s British Boxer of the Year.
Asked what advice she’d go back and give her younger self, she said: “Keep your head, heels and your standards high. Yeah, you know, me granddad used to say you have three names in life: one that you’re given, one you inherit, and the other you make for yourself.
“And I think it’s really important to go out and try and be as positive as you can.”
