MMA FIGHTER ‘The Notorious’ Conor McGregor has withdrawn from several planned media appearances and interviews in the run-up to the world premiere of a new documentary about him.

McGregor was due to be featured on ITV’s The Jonathan Ross Show this Saturday night, 29 October. A spokesperson for that show confirmed to TheJournal.ie that the team was told McGregor would not be recording his appearance this week “due to illness”.

It is understood that McGregor was to embark on a two-day UK publicity spree this week but that it was cancelled or postponed at the last minute. He had been scheduled to conduct interviews with a string of leading UK magazines – including one for a cover story on a large British Sunday newspaper supplement – as well as at least one other television spot, separate to The Jonathan Ross Show.

A host of interviews with major news and entertainment outlets in Ireland were also cancelled at short notice yesterday. Some of these had been planned for next Tuesday, a day before the premiere. However, a pre-record interview with McGregor for the Late Late Show is due to go ahead next Tuesday in front of a live audience, with the result shown on the RTÉ flagship chatshow on 3 November.

Illness was not given specifically as a reason for the cancellation to TheJournal.ie but it is understood that the McGregor camp has been cutting back dramatically on the media opportunities to go one-on-one with the fighter.

World premiere next week

A request sent to McGregor’s press contact and UK agency this morning for comment on the withdrawals has so far not received a response.

The world premiere for the new documentary, entitled Conor McGregor: Notorious, is taking place at the Savoy cinema in Dublin on Wednesday night, 1 November. McGregor is due to be interviewed live on the night, with that interview – along with the film – broadcast simultaneously to audiences over 250 cinemas across the UK and Ireland.

The film will open to the public on general release in the UK and Ireland on Thursday, 2 November, and to other territories – including the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand – a week later.

The documentary will be on release in over 500 cinemas worldwide in total – one of the most-widely released Irish-made documentaries in recent times. It is directed by Gavin Fitzgerald, produced by Motive and distributed in the UK and Ireland by Universal Pictures.

Controversy

McGregor was at the centre of controversy last weekend when he was caught on camera repeatedly using the word ‘faggot’ while consoling UFC fighter Artem Lobov following Lobov’s defeat to Andrew Fili in a fight in Gdansk, Poland on Saturday. There has been no official comment forthcoming from McGregor or the UFC on the incident – however, the UFC later deleted a Twitter video which featured the slur.