In a recent Ronnie O’Sullivan: The Edge of Everything documentary on Amazon Prime, the snooker legend has shared his experiences with mental health issues.
After winning a seventh World Snooker Championship last year that tied a record, a distraught Ronnie O’Sullivan warned his kids that snooker “will kill me”.
In the championship match, O’Sullivan defeated Judd Trump 18–13, and following their tearful hug, the 47-year-old broke down. He then gave his youngest two kids, Lily and Ronnie Jr., a hug and stated, “It will kill me, I can’t f***ing do this anymore.”
The snooker star O’Sullivan openly opens up about his battles with mental health in his new Amazon Prime documentary, “The Edge of Everything,” which includes footage of the discussion.
O’Sullivan went professional at the age of sixteen, and he has been a professional snooker player since 1992. Reggie and Ronnie’s brother, Charlie Kray’s driver, was killed by Ronald’s father, who was incarcerated in the same year.
O’Sullivan has been candid about the effect his father’s 17-year sentence had on him, acknowledging that quitting snooker was probably the best thing he could have done. However, I didn’t; I was just driven to persevere.
“I was thinking, ‘I’d rather not have the snooker,’ just a regular family, forget the snooker, whatever normal life is.’ I didn’t want to put everything on that problem with my dad. Since it was a dream at the time, but in retrospect, it was a nightmare.
“I wasn’t very adept at keeping everything inside of me. People could see my implosion coming. They would have locked me up if I had truly opened up. They would have declared him to be dangerous. Only self-doubt, self-defeating, and self-hatred.”
In contrast, O’Sullivan’s father stated in the documentary that he holds himself primarily responsible for his son’s difficulties. “I knew what he was going through,” he said. “I’ve talked to him on the phone when he was incarcerated, and I’ve watched all of his snooker matches.
And I could hear the nervousness in him as he completely broke down on the phone. I used to drop the phone, completely. I was mostly to blame for that. I hold myself accountable for it; he wasn’t well served by going to prison. He would express that he was done and wanted to set down his cue.
“I would give him a hard time, asking him, ‘Come on, what’s wrong? Mate, stay here a little while longer. For me, it’s like to a visit. It’s good to see you again, and I can watch you on television. Win or lose, I think it’s great to watch you, I remarked. And it’s much wonderful if you succeed.”
On November 21, Ronnie O’Sullivan: The Edge of Everything will only be accessible in theaters in the UK and Ireland. On November 23, it will debut on Prime Video.
