He was at a birthday party when the call came. He had to leave, get to the theater, and perform. Again. It happened more than once. He was fuming every time, but he went anyway.

Freddie Haggerty faces WBC Muay Thai World Champion Yonis Anane in a strawweight Muay Thai bout at The Inner Circle, streaming live for members at live.onefc.com from Lumpinee Stadium in Bangkok, Thailand, on Friday, May 22.

Before the 21-year-old Londoner became a combat sports star, he was a West End child actor with roles in Matilda the Musical and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, performing up to five nights a week at some of London’s most prestigious theaters. He landed his first role at 8 years old after tagging along to his sister’s dance school and getting handed an audition on the spot.

The West End productions came with contracts that banned him from fighting. For the son of a former fighter and younger brother of reigning ONE Bantamweight Kickboxing World Champion Jonathan Haggerty, that clause was the wrong kind of non-negotiable. He stuck it out, did the work, and told himself it would end when the time was right.

“I would do Monday or Tuesday at night, and then a double show on Wednesday. So that’s four shows in one week, and on top of that, there’s the shows on the weekend. Besides, a lot of the kids lived far, so I would always be on call,” he said.

“So there’d been many times like I was at birthday parties and they’d say, ‘You’ve got to come here,’ and I’d be fuming. But I got it done anyway because I never say no to opportunities.”

The moment Freddie Haggerty made the switch

Freddie Haggerty knew from his first fight in Thailand that the theater chapter was closing. The trip happened during the gap between his two West End productions. He walked out of that fight hooked and walked back to England knowing what he was going to do.

When Charlie and the Chocolate Factory ended and the production offered him another four months, the decision took no time at all. He said no. His mum was heartbroken. He had already made his peace with it.

“I just said, ‘Well, no, I don’t want to do it no more.’ I actually said, my exact words, ‘I want to be a normal kid.’ When I say a normal kid, I mean I just want to fight. For me, fighting is just something so normal and natural,” he said.

“My heart belonged on a different stage. I always had a dream. I knew from a young age what I wanted to do. Not just because of what my brother had done, but because I just loved it. Saying goodbye to acting was probably one of the easiest decisions I’ve had to make in my life.”