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14th Jul 2017

Conor McGregor: “I’m half black… from the belly button down”

"Let's address the race."

Conor Heneghan

“Do they not know I’m half black? Yeah. I’m half black from the belly button down.”

Conor McGregor responded to allegations of racism in fairly blunt fashion at the latest stop in this week’s press tour in Brooklyn ahead of his bout with Floyd Mayweather next month.

The Notorious had faced criticism in a number of quarters by asking Mayweather to “dance for me, boy” on the first night of the press tour in Los Angeles on Tuesday night, with boxer Andre Ward amongst those to express his disapproval with the use of the word ‘boy’.

McGregor didn’t shy away from the allegations during the press conference in New York on Thursday; if anything, he did the opposite.

Addressing the audience at the Barclays Center, McGregor said: “Let’s address the race. A lot of the media seem to be saying I’m against black people.

“That’s absolutely fu**ing ridiculous.

“Do they not know I’m half black? Yeah. I’m half black from the belly button down.”

McGregor then went on to say: “And just to show that that’s squashed, here’s a little present for my beautiful, black female fans,” which was followed by a gesture, the meaning of which wouldn’t take a genius to interpret.

You can check it out for yourself from 54:10 in the video below; the fourth and final press conference takes place at the SSE Arena in London on 14 July.