Vinnie Jones' new life on farm after wife's tragic death leaves him broken
The former Wales international was one of football's most notorious hardmen but is now living a very different life
The rise, fall and comeback of Vinnie Jones is the subject of a new Netflix documentary, with the former Wales international set to open up like never before.
One of football's most notorious hardmen, the 61-year-old is best remembered for the pivotal role he played as part of Wimbledon's 'Crazy Gang', playing over 200 games for the London side and winning the FA Cup with them in 1988. A physically uncompromising defensive midfielder, he also represented Leeds, Sheffield United, Chelsea and Queens Park Rangers during his 15-year career.
Qualifying for Wales through his Ruthin-born grandfather, he won nine caps for the national team and wore the captain's armband on three occasions.
After his football career wound down, Jones' hardman persona saw him find success as an actor, with a nearly-30 year career in film and television seeing him win awards for his roles in Guy Ritchie films Snatch and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.
In recent years, however, the Watford-born star has swapped Hollywood for the English countryside, buying a sprawling 2,000 acre estate and farm in Petworth, West Sussex.
He has since dedicated his time to transforming the land around the 400-year-old property into a wildlife sanctuary, with his ambitious renovation work the subject of Discovery+ documentary Vinnie Jones in the Country.
The popular show recently returned for a third series, with viewers seeing a different side to the once-menacing former midfielder as he opened up about grief and his mental health.
In 2019, Jones' wife of 25 years Tanya tragically passed away at the age of 59 following a six-year battle with skin cancer, leaving him heartbroken. He later described his grief as "f***ing exhausting" and admitted his "spirit was broken inside" but added that he had "enough knowledge and experience" to cope with it.
Speaking candidly to The Sun about his late wife, he said: “I talk to her all of the time. Constantly, every day. We have a little chat when I’m making my bed. This morning I went, ‘There you go babe, look’, and it wasn’t my best bed-making, so I re-did it.”
Last year, Jones also lost his mother Glenda, as she passed away at the age of 80 following a heart attack, and he admitted that learning to talk openly about his feelings on his Discovery+ show had helped him and others to feel more equipped in handling grief.
"There's a lot of mental health [on the programme]," he said earlier this year. "I had a guy come up to me at the gate and say you have saved my life watching the show.
"It is important for people like myself to share what I have been through and say it is alright. We have been there. I tell them how I dealt with things."
"You will learn that when you get to my age, you start dealing with grief a lot more than what you want," Jones added. "My mum would have wanted me to do that. I just got on with it and kept busy It is the way to do it.
"But sometimes it is nice to get the stick and the dog and go for a walk up the woods and see a deer, a red kite or a buzzard and say, 'what is he thinking?'
"Something will knock you down [in life], but what defines any of us is how you get up and how you deal with it. Keep swinging is what I say."