Ronnie O'Sullivan Shares How Prison Inmates Embraced Him as 'One of Us' – A Look at His Cult Following Behind Bars

RONNIE O’SULLIVAN has revealed he had a huge following among his dad’s fellow inmates in prison when he won his first world title in 2001.

‘s father was for the murder of Bruce Bryan in 1992.

Ronnie O’Sullivan has revealed he had a cult following among his dad’s inmates in prisonCredit: Getty The seven-time world champion said Ronnie Snr was his ‘biggest cheerleader’ before his life sentenceCredit: Refer to Caption

Ronnie Snr was sent away the same year his son turned professional and would.

It meant that he missed seeing his son’s rise as one of the top players in .

He was absent as Ronnie Jnr won his first three world titles in 2001, 2004 and 2008, but he kept up with the results from prison and got his fellow prisoners invested in his progress.

Now a seven-time world champion, the 49-year-old has revealed the inmates saw him as “one of us” and said they would bet chocolate bars on the player.

Speaking on TNT Sports show Roll the Tape, he said: “Obviously, people that have been in prison, you hear the stories, like the inmates just create such a strong bond for each other.

“With my dad being there and me playing snooker, I had such a big following from the inmates, because not only did they like my dad, it was something for them to say, ‘He’s one of us.’

“That’s what it felt like a lot of the time, going to see my dad and a lot of people in the prison service.

“They’re coming in and buzzing, saying ‘I won a Mars bar on your son the other day’, you’d hear a lot of stories like that.

“I’ve met a lot of my dad’s friends and people in the service, and you realise how much of a big moment that was for my dad and what all the inmates were going through on that night.”

His father’s inmates are said to have banged on their cell doors on the night the player won his first world title after tuning into the game on the radio.

O’Sullivan spoke of the support his father gave him, even from prison and how he gave him “confidence and belief” by being a cheerleader.

He said: “When I heard my dad talk about his night and how he celebrated it, it was emotional.

“My dad was my biggest fan, my biggest cheerleader. He had the most confidence in me, he had confidence in me when I didn’t have that much confidence in myself. He instilled something in me that just naturally wasn’t there.

“I was a bit of an introvert, my dad was an extrovert. He would come alive in front of a crowd of people, but I would be very quiet. He gave me that confidence and belief in myself.

“Without all that support and belief that someone else has in me,I would never have been…maybe not got anywhere like the achievements I’ve got.”

The Rocket recently appeared in a documentary about his life called The Edge Of Everything and shed light on the moment he knew his father had been sentenced.

He said: “The healthiest thing for me to do was probably to stop playing snooker. But I didn’t, I just felt compelled to stick with it.”

After serving his time in prison, Ronnie Snr has since left his old life behind and now travels around in a campervan.

In February 2022, that Ronnie Sr was living in a plush £94,000 Mercedes motorhome with his girlfriend Tiffany Kushner.