Tyson Fury has revealed that his wife, Paris, suffered a miscarriage six months into her pregnancy and that he only learnt the truth the night before he lost his world heavyweight title unification fight against ­Oleksandr Usyk in May.

Fury stressed that the loss of their child should not be used to obscure the fact that Usyk won the bout and his primary concern was that he had not been able to be with his wife. “She lost [the baby] on the Friday of the fight, which was pretty shitty,” Fury said on Wednesday afternoon.

“I am not ­making excuses but she was six months pregnant. It’s not like a small miscarriage at the beginning. You have to physically give birth to a dead child, on your own, while your husband is in a foreign country. I could not be there for her, in that moment, and that is tough for me. I have been with the woman for longer than I wasn’t with her, so it is hard that I couldn’t be there with her.”

An emotional Fury spoke a few hours before he and Usyk attended a press conference in London. Their rematch, just like their epic first battle which produced one of the great heavyweight fights in recent memory, will be held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on 21 December. Fury admitted that, even before he received the shattering news of the miscarriage, he had begun to fear the worst.

“When she said she couldn’t come over, I knew there was a problem. She usually comes out on fight week but she had high blood pressure and couldn’t come. I asked her what was up and to tell me but she wouldn’t. So I knew.”

Speaking quietly and calmly, he repeated himself. “I knew. I knew there was a problem. I said to my brother: ‘She’s lost that baby.” She never told me she had lost the baby, but I knew. When I got back I got the inevitable confirmation that it was gone but she kept it to herself.”

Fury added that Turki Alalshikh, chairman of the General Entertain­ment Authority who has driven Saudi Arabia’s quest to control boxing, had offered to fly the boxer’s wife to Riyadh. “Turki offered us a private jet to get around the high blood pressure and said he would bring the doctor with her. But when I knew she couldn’t fly, I knew there was a big problem.”

Addressing his wife’s ordeal, Fury said: “To go through that on your own isn’t good.”

The best of our sports journalism from the past seven days and a heads-up on the weekend’s action

after newsletter promotion

He reiterated that their personal tragedy should not be linked to his loss to Usyk. “It’s not an excuse – hell no. I am a man of honour. I do what I have to do when I am in [the ring]. I don’t think about that sort of stuff when I am in that fight. Nothing outside the ring matters, there is no emotion. You think about all that stuff afterwards.”

A visibly moved Fury, who already has seven children with Paris, confirmed that they had lost a little boy: “We have had miscarriages before and, it happens. Will we have any more kids? I don’t know if she’s back to normal from that. It takes a lot of getting over. But no more of this morbid stuff now because I’ll break down in tears.”