Champions League presenter details horror illness which felt like 'bomb went off in brain'
Darrell Currie has opened up on the mysterious illness which struck him down while presenting live coverage of the Champions League two years ago. The 41-year-old, who worked for BT Sport before they were rebranded as TNT Sports, initially made a name for himself covering Scottish football.
Currie went on to present live coverage of the Premier League and Champions League before it all changed on one fateful day in 2022. He was covering Celtic's game against Real Madrid when he experienced the first wave of the crippling pain he has since learned to live with.
Speaking to The Athletic, Currie recalled: "It felt like a bomb went off in my brain. The second it happened, I remember holding onto my chair. I felt dizzy, like I was going to fall out of my seat and pass out.
"I managed to finish the chat and get to the break but I came off air feeling terrible. Walking back to the TV trucks, it felt like the ground wasn’t there. I had no real sense of where I was."
Currie quickly scheduled an emergency appointment with a private GP and was diagnosed with labyrinthitis, a type of inner ear infection. The pain returned while he was covering another game three weeks later, with producers removing him from the air in spite of his efforts to carry on.
"I texted the producer during the second half asking how long the post-match segment was," he explained. "I was struggling to stand up and every time I was turning my head to chat to the pundits, I felt like going to faint or fall over. I take a lot of pride in my work so I would never, ever not finish a programme.
"That night, the producer saw something was not right with me. He came into the stadium during the game and said he was taking it out of my hands. I was being taken off air. It was the biggest weight off my shoulders. Things unfortunately for the next few weeks got worse and worse."
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Currie, who has barely appeared on live television since the frightening ordeal, said he considered ways of taking his own life in a desperate attempt to escape the agony. Two years on, he is on the road to recovery but remains unsure if he will ever be able to return to his old job.
"For those few months after that diagnosis, I’m not sure I wanted to be alive," he said. "I would talk to my wife often about: 'What is the point in being here?’ I couldn’t really see the light of day.
"I would never have committed suicide, as I remember speaking to Kris Boyd about his charity and I know how that can be for your family, leaving them like that. I never told anyone I was thinking of it, but I was genuinely trying to think of ways I could do it, even if that was abroad so it was something assisted.
"The pain was horrific. My neck felt broken, my back felt broken, my whole body felt broken. I could barely hold my head up. I was questioning everything.
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Currie was a regular on BT Sport's coverage of Champions League nights until he was hit with the terrifying illness, which still causes him pain to this day. He is also known as the man who persuaded Eden Hazard to confess he was leaving Chelsea just after the Europa League final in 2019.
TNT Sports issued a message of support to Currie after he shared his story with the world, saying on social media: "Everyone at TNT Sports is sending you love and best wishes, Darrell."
Champions League presenter details horror illness which felt like 'bomb went off in brain'
Champions League presenter details horror illness which felt like 'bomb went off in brain'
Champions League presenter details horror illness which felt like 'bomb went off in brain'
Champions League presenter details horror illness which felt like 'bomb went off in brain'
Champions League presenter details horror illness which felt like 'bomb went off in brain'
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