[Watch] Nick Kyrgios Says Mum Grew Up In “Pure Slum City”, But Malaysians Say, No Way!
He might have mistook traditional kampung houses for wooden shacks in a slum.
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Australian professional tennis player Nick Kyrgios, who has a Malaysian mother, recently said something that felt outrageous while being interviewed by British-American journalist Louis Theroux.
In the short TikTok clip of the Louis Theroux podcast, Kyrgios claimed his mother grew up in the Malaysian slums and lived in a wooden shack near the city.
He added that people who said he underachieved in his career don’t understand that his parents worked hard to find “a way out of this mess and then making it work.”
He also shared he worked “ten times harder than the majority of the people.” When pressed, he explained that he worked harder than most people “anywhere.” He believed if anyone trained as hard as him, they would have ended up in the hospital.
@officiallouistheroux More from my conversation with Nick Kyrgios! You can find the full episode on Spotify – Merry Christmas!
♬ original sound – Louis Theroux
What do you mean she lived in a “slum city”?
Kyrgios’s claims that his mum grew up in a slum city did not sit well with some people. This is because it has been widely reported that his mum, Norlaila (Nill), comes from a royal family.
She grew up in Gombak, Selangor and according to the New Straits Times, her grandfather’s cousin was the Sultan of Pahang, and she is a Tengku by birth.
Norlaila became a computer engineer and married a Greek man and painter, George Kyrgios in Australia.
As such, those who know his mother’s heritage found it hard to believe she grew up in the slums. They believed she would still have led a comfortable life in Australia.
In an interview with Lite FM in 2020, Norlaila said that her mother, Juliana Ibrahim, was a well-known Malaysian actress who starred beside Tan Sri P. Ramlee in the film Sesudah Suboh.
Norlaila said her mum then met an Australian soldier in Singapore and they migrated to Australia when she was 12 with her sister. This soldier would become Norlaila’s stepfather.
She shared that she faced racism while living in Australia in her younger years. While her children were growing up, she said they didn’t have much and had to get loans to get them to school.
Nah, netizens aren’t buying the story
Over in the comments, some jokingly asked whether Kyrgios mistakenly thought a traditional kampung house was a wooden shack. They also wondered if he mistook the old Pahang palace made out of timber for a lowly wooden shack.
Meanwhile, someone explained that someone living in a traditional kampung house in Kuala Lumpur in those days was a rich man and the market value would be in the millions now.
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