Following his victory against Wladimir Klitschko on Saturday night, Tyson Fury's views regarding homosexuality were highlighted by the media (including us) and a British MP.
I'm not celebrating Tyson Fury's win. His aggressive style of foul homophobia is precisely the kind that leads to young gay suicides.
— Chris Bryant MP (@RhonddaBryant) November 29, 2015
The new world heavyweight champion met the media again at a press conference today and Channel 4's Ciaran Jenkeins questioned Fury regarding recent comments which he made.
After having the term 'homophobe' clarified for him by Jenkins, Fury trotted out the old line that he counts numerous gay people as friends.
Well, I've got quite a few gay friends actually. And if somebody didn't like gay people then you wouldn't have any gay friends, would you?
Attempting to mitigate further, he directed that accusations had grown from a Mail on Sunday interview in which he quoted the bible.
Well I think it stems from the fact that I quoted some quotes out of the bible. That I didn't write clearly, because I didn't write the bible.
So I think that's where it's come from.
The thing is, Fury has a history of being associated with homophobic comments.
In 2013, he was fined £3,000 by the British Boxing Council for referring to fighters David Price and Tony Bellew as "gay lovers".
He was also forced to deny that he posted "dont like gays shoul all b shot dead" to his Twitter account, instead blaming his cousins who he said had control of his phone at the time.