Welsh boxing's Lauren Price on why sport makes her 'selfish', her inspiration and wedding plans

Wales Online

4 hours ago

Welsh boxing's Lauren Price on why sport makes her 'selfish', her inspiration and wedding plans
In an interview with WalesOnline, the 30-year-old reflects on how she finds herself in the best place she's ever been
Lauren Price says she is in a good place
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When Lauren Price kissed her then friend Carlie Jones during a night out six years ago she had no idea Carlie had such strong feelings for her. Carlie later admitted she'd always been in love with the former Wales footballer turned champion boxer, Lauren.
The pair are in so many ways different. Lauren, from Ystrad Mynach, came out when she was 13, and Carlie much later. Lauren is a professional sports star while Carlie runs a home care company. Lauren has to spend her working week in Sheffield training every day, while Carlie stays at their home in Blackwood.
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The normal things couples do like eating out together aren't an option while Lauren trains for the next fight, but they are head over heels and newly-engaged. Next year they will marry at Sant Ffraed House near Abergavenny.
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"I've found my person," Lauren tells WalesOnline in an interview to mark her winning this year's Pinc List, our list of Wales' most influential LGBTQ+ people which you can read here.
Wedging the interview in between a morning run and afternoon training at the English Institute of Sport in Sheffield, she spoke about her hopes for the remaining years in boxing, her inspiration, and the couple's love story.
"We were friends for more than 10 years," Lauren says of Carlie, before six years ago they kissed on a night out. Remaining friends, Carlie had gone to Lauren's pro fights.
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"We had been in different relationships but then we were single again and in each other's lives and it just happened. That was the first time Carlie had been with a woman in that way. She cared a lot about what people thought of her, whereas I couldn't have been with someone and hid it. I wasn't going to hide the fact I was with a woman. That's not me.
'We hadn't actually brought that kiss up at all over the years but not long ago I did remind her of it. She told me she'd always been in love with me. I told her I felt the same way and told her everything about how I couldn't have been with someone who hid it but she told me she was ready. She totally surprised me because she has changed, she doesn't care so much anymore about what people think.
'I think sometimes we are affected by others having a stereotypical view of the world, but I'm not bothered about that and Carlie isn't bothered anymore either. What is normal? My world is normal to me. I'm very proud to be an out gay woman and I really just see it as living my life. PDA (public display of affection) is normal to me now. I used to think about it more and worry about it more.
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'Before I didn't hide it but I wouldn't have shown it. Now I feel different about that. I think it's important. My love for Carlie is more important to me than anything and if I want to hold her hand or kiss her in public then I will. Life is short.
"Love is a mad thing. When you've got it it's amazing. I feel so lucky I've found my person and to celebrate that when you want to is important.'
It was that sentiment that the Pinc List panel wanted to recognise - someone living their life, unapologetically out, and inspiring in their strength, physically in her case but also mentally as she battles keyboard warriors attacking her over her gender and sexuality.
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"I do get the odd comment like 'dy**' or whatever it may be, even down to the way I dress," she says. "I get: 'You shouldn't be a boxer, you should be in the kitchen' or comments about female boxing. Most of the time it's middle-aged men giving me this abuse behind their keyboards. I'm not sure they'd ever do it to my face.
'You're always going to get it. I knew that when I got into it. To be honest I don't look at any of it anymore. It's sad the way the world is and people take their own lives over this stuff. I just focus on what those who are in my circle think of me and I keep them close.'
Lauren, now 30 and in the prime of her boxing career off the back of her win over Natasha Jonas to add the WBC and IBF welterweight world titles to her WBA crown, told school friends she was lesbian when she was just 13.
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'It sounds young but I was playing older age group football at the time and a lot of those girls around me were gay and out and proud and that was great for me to see. I was lucky with that. So coming out was okay for me.
'I also did have a bit of an attitude about me, I will admit. If anyone had said anything to me that was hurtful or negative I certainly could look after myself. I was always known as just one of the boys I suppose.
'I know not everyone has such positive experiences. I get sad when I hear of people who feel they have to hide it or people who have had to live a large part of their life not being themselves.
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'I speak a lot about my inspiration Kelly Holmes. I spoke to her not too long ago for a documentary about all of this stuff and her experience in the army and feeling she had to keep her sexuality a secret to avoid being kicked out of the army. It was awful. Crazy stuff.'
Lauren, who was brought up by her grandparents Derek and Linda, without whom she says she would have turned out a 'wrong'un', had worried what they would think. 'I wasn't scared as such when I came out, but what I was scared of was telling nan and grandad. Nan did tell me it was just a phase, but she soon came around.
'Grandad was great. I was really taken aback by it all to be honest. I was worried because my grandad was very old school. I was thinking: 'What's he going to say? What's he going to think?' But I couldn't have hoped for a better response."
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Derek died in November 2020 aged 80. He had been suffering with dementia. 'Everytime I go into the ring I know he is there looking down on me,' she says. 'That's what gets me through. I know he's with me in spirit.
'I've always said it'd be for them; for all the years they supported me and all the money they spent sending me around the world and getting me as good as I am. It'd be for them.'
The scar which crosses her forehead above her left eye isn't from boxing. It's a football injury from her days playing for Wales' youth sides as a centre half. Her best decision was leaving her football career - which took her to the senior international stage - to focus all her efforts on boxing.
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'I prefer the individuality of boxing, I prefer the control. I train on my own, I win on my own and I lose on my own. No excuses. I like that. You obviously don't get that in football. I don't want to have to rely on others.'
No excuses means no stone is left unturned across each week of the year to ensure she is top of her game. 'It's hard. People don't really see that side of things. As well as being away from my loved ones it's actually quite a lonely life too. That's why I'm so grateful for Carlie because she gets it. I know being with me isn't easy with my lifestyle.
'Even when I am home at weekends, I can't go out for a steak and chips or to a restaurant or get a takeaway. She's seen me now through two major fights and she recognises it and understands it. I think it takes a lot of understanding and patience.
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'I don't want to be selfish but I suppose I am - you have to be to achieve a certain standard of success. Boxing is my life and it's such a short career and I've got to take everything from it that I can before it's over. I see myself as still climbing the ladder and wanting to do great things.'
And what about when it's all over? 'Maybe we'll have kids down the line when I'm back home and retired. We've discussed that, although we're not dead set on it. We're happy if it's just us, for sure, but we've spoken about freezing our eggs and seeing where life takes us. I want to make sure we're financially in a good place prior to that.
'I've been away from home on a weekly basis since my football days. I've been in Sheffield coming up to 10 years now, up and down the motorway. It'll be nice not to have to do that all the time.
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'I do definitely still want to be involved in boxing though after I retire. I've been in sport all my life and I'd be lost without it. I'm thinking I might open up my own academy for the next generation. I'd like to do that.'
She doesn't know who she will fight next but a meeting with WBO champion Mikaela Mayer could happen this year. After that she might let herself free up some time for wedding planning.
'It's been a lovely time. Our families have been amazing. We're so lucky we've got a really supportive bubble around us. We've booked the wedding and it's all sorted for next year.
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'When the engagement came out we did get some hate. I did warn Carlie about that. Sadly it's part of being in the public eye, but she got it straight away. I do find it hard for her because she's not used to it but she gets it. It just shows there's still a long way to go. But we've come so far. The support I've had and I've received throughout my life, all I can be is thankful - not just to my family and friends and people back home but the LGBTQ+ community.'