Ronnie O’Sullivan hopes to reconcile with his estranged daughter who he hasn’t seen in over a decade.
The seven-time snooker world champion was left under no illusion that he would play no part in the life of his eldest daughter, Taylor-Ann Magnus, following his most recent Crucible triumph back in 2022.
‘He’s not part of my life,’ she said in an interview with the Mirror shortly after her father equalled Stephen Hendry’s record of world championship triumphs. ‘I wouldn’t want someone like that around me and my child.’
‘I was 17 or 18 the last time I saw him and I forgave him within myself, although that doesn’t excuse what he did,’ added Magnus, whose mother dated O’Sullivan for two years in the 1990s.
In a wide ranging conversation with The Times O’Sullivan, who recently relocated to Dubai, was asked if he envisaged being reunited with is daughter.
‘I hope not,’ he said when asked if the estrangement was permanent. ‘I think I’ve got to make some sort of amends.
‘I don’t know how it’s going to work out. Hopefully, at some point, it might sort itself out. Who knows? I don’t know.’
O’Sullivan does now share a far happier relationship with his two other children, Ronnie Junior and Lily, who have been by his side for some of his more recent landmark successes.
‘I see more of my daughter than I ever used to,’ he said. ‘She’s quite laid-back, very chilled.’
‘They just want me to be happy,’ he added of the pair who will spend Christmas with him in the country his now calls home.
Pressed on why he and his wife Laila Rouass, settled on Dubai as their new base, O’Sullivan revealed a warmer climate factored in his thinking although there were sporting reasons for emigrating.
‘So I had to do a lot of trips into London, an hour and twenty minutes each way — it was a headache. So a lot of the time I was having to go to Sheffield for, like, a week to get some proper practice done.
‘I just find it all a bit too hectic. I couldn’t get anything done there. The highlight of my day was going out to Stratford Westfield and having a cup of tea in the Carluccio’s.’
Asked why Dubai specifically, he added: ‘I work a lot in the Middle East and China, and the jet lag, I could never get on top of it. That was a struggle.
‘There’s not really a lot to do there (in Spain), is there? And there’s not a lot of tables.
‘We’re not there for a bouji sort of lifestyle. I just like the simplicity of it there, the weather’s great.’