TNT Sports presenter Darrell Currie told his wife ‘I want to die’ as mystery illness struck on live TV

Darrell Currie hasn’t presented a live football match since September 2022 but he’s finally received a diagnosis after years of living with a mystery chronic illness and looking for answers

TNT Sports presenter Darrell Currie has opened up living with a chronic illness which left him in such pain that he once told his wife: « I want to die. » Currie, 43, last presented a live football match more than years ago.

While anchoring coverage of Celtic’s clash with Real Madrid in the Champions League on TNT Sports – then known at BT Sport – in September 2022, he felt severe pain in his head. Currie described the feeling as like a ‘bomb going off in his brain’.

A few weeks later, he suffered the same pain while covering Scotland’s match against the Republic of Ireland and felt as if he was going to black out. Currie was advised to go off air by a concerned producer and in January 2023, he revealed that he’d had been battling a chronic pain condition which at the time was a mystery.

Now, in an interview with Scotland Tonight, Currie has detailed his heartbreaking battle with the illness. « There were so many weird symptoms, including the dizziness and everything else, but it was like my body was completely broken, » Currie explained.

« There was almost no function. I was in bed for a couple of days. Probably at that time I thought, ‘I could die here’, because they were giving me everything. Doctors were sending medication, pain killers, the strongest stuff you can imagine. And nothing was helping at all, I thought, ‘This might be it’.

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« You still think, ‘Why me?’ There would be many times I was lying in bed and saying to my wife, ‘I just want to die because it can’t be worth living on like this, I don’t want to be the burden’. Is it worth being alive if things were gonna get worse? »

The Glaswegian underwent a number of medical tests, such as ones for Lyme disease, multiple sclerosis and arachnoiditis. For a long period, doctors weren’t able to give him a proper diagnosis.

After having massive 20 MRI scans, Currie was eventually diagnosed with chronic Lyme disease and he’s now undergoing treatment in London. « There was nothing that was really completing the story to say, ‘This is what’s wrong with you’, and it was a medical merry-go-round, » he recalled.

« I could tell they had no idea what was wrong with me and they were just giving me medication. I would go back and eventually I would take them because… you trust, don’t you?

« I got diagnosed with Lyme disease – chronic Lyme disease, I was told. I dived into this treatment. I did six months of antibiotics and they were saying I had to go and do intravenous antibiotics off the back of that and the quotes were eye-watering.

« Tens of thousands of pounds… I couldn’t keep on spending money. I was running out of money and you have to prioritise. »

Currie admitted that he misses broadcasting but he’s fully focussed on being recovering for the sake of his family, and he’s starting to feel stronger. « I do miss the people and the broadcasting at times, » he added.

« I think at the start, when you get ill, you chase getting back to where you were, and I think this feeling of, ‘I need to get back to where I was’, is in your head a lot at the start when you’re unwell.

« It’s not healthy, so after about a year, I sort of lost the feeling of desperation to get back. It was more, ‘I need to live. I need to be alive for the sake of my family’. »

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