Former Manchester United star Rio Ferdinand's tears for his children as he doesn't know how to help them grieve for their late mother

Rio Ferdinand admits he thought about taking his own life in the dark days after wife Rebecca lost her battle against breast cancer two years ago, aged 34.

 

He tells a poignant TV documentary: “When I used to hear about people who’d committed suicide I’d think, ‘You selfish so-and-so, how can you do something like that?’ 

"But there’s a time at the beginning you kind of know how they feel.”

He says he was not ready to face counselling straight after Rebecca’s death.

 

Later he tells a therapist he is most worried about eldest son Lorenz, 10, who has barely spoken about his mum’s death. 

“I get nothing out of the two boys,” says Rio, whose second son Tate, seven, and daughter Tia, five, also appear.

The film follows the footballer on an intensely personal journey exploring how bereaved parents try to come to terms with their loss and mould new lives for themselves and their children.

 

Rio's wife Rebecca carries one of their children (Photo: Splash News)

He says: “I don’t think I’ve grieved properly. I’ve not given myself that time to sit down and really flush everything out and go through it. I don’t like to think. I don’t want certain thoughts running around my head.”

Rio found it helpful to meet other dads who have lost their wives.

“There were so many situations where I thought ‘Oh, I thought that was just me,’” he says afterwards. “I know I haven’t moved on. I don’t see myself taking off my wedding ring.”

 

Rio admits he first turned to whisky and brandy to cope with the shock of losing Rebecca. She had beaten breast cancer two years earlier and by the time medics found the disease had returned it had spread. 

She died five weeks later at London’s Royal Marsden hospital.

Golfer Darren Clarke, who lost his wife Heather to cancer in 2006, tells Rio: “The best thing you can do for your kids is to let them see you smile now and again.