It is the rags-to-riches tale of a working class hustler who built a billion-pound sporting dynasty from the back office of a snooker club – and then handed the reins over to his brash, flash Essex boy son.
Netflix’s Matchroom: The Greatest Showmen has captivated viewers with its intimate portrait of the boxing, darts and snooker empire built by Barry Hearn and now fronted by his wide-boy son Eddie.
Yet for all its intimate access-all-areas insight into the lives of Hearn Senior and Junior and their respective family lives, there is one key character who is conspicuous by her absence: Chloe Hearn, Eddie’s wife of 13 years.
And The Daily Mail understands that the reason for this absence may be that Eddie and Chloe are increasingly living separate lives. They even live in two different countries.
And although the couple are adamant they remain very much still married and have absolutely no plans to change this status quo, their relationship has become increasingly one conducted at a distance.
Eddie, 46, now spends most of his time in his luxurious home in Monaco – where he is required to spend at least six months of the year as he is domiciled in the exclusive enclave for tax reasons.
Former beautician Chloe, meanwhile, spends her days out of the spotlight behind the gates of the Hearn family’s sprawling estate in Ingatestone, Essex – but occupying a smaller property away from the grandiose main house.
Their two teenage daughters are thought to shuttle between the two residences, regularly visiting their father while living with their 47-year-old mother.
Eddie Hearn and his wife Chloe have been married for 13 years – but now the couple are leading increasingly separate lives say friends, with her remaining in Essex and Eddie in Monaco
Former beautician Chloe – mother of Eddie’s two children was omitted from the Hearns’ Netflix documentary Matchroom: The Greatest Showmen spends most of her days out of the spotlight
Eddie, 46, represents stars including Anthony Joshua (pictured) and Canelo Alvarez and spends his time jetting around the world promoting fights while living mainly in Monaco
Another suggestion of their marriage evolving in an unusual direction may be gleaned in that most traditional of ways: their wearing – or not – of wedding rings.
Eddie, 46, who represents stars including Anthony Joshua and Canelo Alvarez and brokered boxing’s first ever £1bn streaming deal, does not appear to wear a wedding band on the show.
Nor is he wearing one in publicity photos taken ahead of the documentary series’ release alongside his father – but with Chloe nowhere to be seen – whereas in photographs taken at earlier points in their union, he very much was wearing one.
For instance, when announcing Matchroom’s signing of Amir Khan in 2018, a gold band can be seen on Eddie’s finger when he posed for publicity shots with the boxer.
We are unable to compare the status of Chloe’s third finger left hand as she has not been seen in public for many months.
In fact her only known public action of any kind this year came on March 31 when Chloe resigned as a director from Matchroom’s charity foundation.
The very next day, Eddie filed papers with Companies House confirming he had relocated to Monaco.
Eddie – worth an estimated £50 million – was from that moment listed as being ‘usually resident’ in the principality as of April 1, the same month Labour abolished favourable tax treatment for non-domiciled residents.
This was apparently two people rearranging their affairs.
But while this series of small indications of their changing ways of living might in ordinary circumstances leave observers to suspect an imminent split, friends are adamant that the couple’s marriage remains robust and that they are still very much together.
A spokesperson for the couple told us: ‘Rumours around the status of Eddie and Chloe’s marriage are untrue. They are still very much together.’
And a source close to the Hearns confirmed this, saying: ‘Eddie and Chloe may spend a lot of time apart but that’s down to the differing demands on them for business and family reasons – and they remain very much together.’
Another friend told us: ‘Eddie and Chloe are leading increasingly separate lives, yes.
‘They now live in different countries and don’t spend nearly as much time together as they once did.
‘They’re rarely seen in public together – and that is mirrored behind the scenes too.
‘And it’s not all that surprising – they are very different people with very different demands on them, him as the leader of a huge business, she as primary carer to their two girls.
‘But they absolutely are a couple and have no plans to change that.’
Others in the boxing world have been less circumspect about Eddie living away from his wife – and have teased him about it.
Typical of this banter was the highlighting of an attractive member of Eddie’s sporting empire, featherweight boxer Skye Nicholson, 30.
Former boxing champion Oscar de la Hoya teased: ‘You guys look pretty cozy, Eddie’ after he and Skye were pictured leaving a Miami nightclub together.
But another friend of the Hearns said: ‘Eddie and Chloe are there for each other – and for their girls – where and when it matters.
‘They have a modern relationship that works for them and if other people think that’s odd, then that’s their problem.
‘Eddie has worked really hard to make Matchroom an even bigger success than his Dad did – and that’s meant making sacrifices.
‘He is always flying around the world somewhere and it’s usually in a private jet.
‘Chloe simply doesn’t have the time or energy to accompany him constantly.’
Now you see it: Eddie was pictured wearing his wedding ring with Amir Khan back in 2015
Now you don’t: But in recent promotion shots wit his dad, Eddie was without his wedding ring
Eddie and Chloe haven’t been seen together for years – but featured in this video a few years ago when she spoke on camera about what it was like being married to the promoter
Chloe Hearn was at one time very close to TOWIE star Chloe Simms and and the pair owned Chloe’s Beauty Bar in Brentwood, Essex before it closed down in 2019
Even when the couple were still co-habiting, and Chloe was still taking an active part in the company’s promotional rounds, there were signs that she and Eddie were confident about their differences.
In a 2015 joint interview which took place at the Brentwood beauty salon she then ran but later stepped back from, she described being wed to Eddie as meaning in practice ‘learning to do everything on your own’.
She told an interviewer then: ‘I came from London with my family where it’s a normal set up.
‘Then I came to Essex – don’t get me wrong it is wonderful, he is the father of my children.’
Eddie then interrupts her with a telling quip: ‘You’re a boxing widow.’
Chloe continued: ‘I know that he works incredibly hard and we are proud of him for that, we really are, but as a family, for me and our children, it’s just learning to be there for them for both of us.’
She added: ‘I’d prefer him to be home more but anything that Ed does…he will always put 100% in and it will overtake his life, that’s just the way that he is.’
Eddie went to school with another son of a famous father, Frank Lampard Junior, whose namesake parent had played for West Ham.
And just as his future England player classmate would do, Eddie was determined to succeed even more than his father had.
This didn’t start promisingly: he was expelled from Brentwood School at 16, with his father later admitting it was for being ‘trouble, plenty of mouth and aggravation’.
After a stint selling double glazing, Eddie began working for Matchroom in 2004, tasked with signing deals for golf and poker tournaments.
And he knuckled down and worked hard and by 2021, he had succeeded his father as chairman, credited with taking boxing to unprecedented global heights.
The father-of-two now also owns a property in the affluent LA suburb of Bel Air, travels by private plane and has a luxury car collection spearheaded by a £320,000 Rolls-Royce Wraith.
In a 2021 interview, he described his roots as an ‘Essex/East End family that’s done well.’
Speaking about Chloe and their lavish Essex life, he said: ‘My missus is from west London and she used to take the mick: ‘Ooh, I’m dating an Essex boy.’
‘Now? She adores it here. There’s a lot of good working-class people in Essex. And you won’t find no snobbery here, neither.’
While Eddie was born into privilege, Barry Hearn was anything but. His path from Dagenham council house to the boardrooms of world sport was a much grittier climb.
The self-proclaimed ‘tough b*****d’ was born in 1948 at a council house in Dagenham, east London, and grew up in a two-bed terrace in Debden, Essex.
His first money-making scheme was flogging ripped-out porn magazine centrefolds to grammar school classmates – setting up a sales team across year groups before being rumbled by a teacher.
At 18, Barry secured an entry-level job in the City but quickly pushed boundaries. He admitted to ‘playing the stock market’ in a money-making ‘wheeze’ he described as ‘very dangerous, very stupid and totally illegal today’.
In his autobiography, My Life, Barry lays bare just how close his early business dealings were to London’s underworld. He ran the books for the King brothers, East End hard men who supplied jukeboxes, fruit machines and pool tables to pubs.
The father-of-two wrote: ‘The brothers from East Ham were actually a nice bunch and I went to see the eldest a few times in Ford Open Prison down at Arundel in Sussex and met loads of old faces, including Charlie Kray.’
In 1974, while a finance director of a failing fashion consultancy, Barry was informed that a chain of snooker halls were for sale.
After strong-arming the owner to sell, he used company cash to secure the deal and became chairman of Lucania Snooker Clubs.
By the early 1980s, Barry was managing snooker ace Steve Davis, the era’s star, and rode the crest of a wave of BBC snooker popularity.
‘For seven years, I could do no wrong,’ he recalled. In 1982 he sold Lucania for £3.1m, securing Matchroom’s Romford HQ in the process.
Flush with cash, Barry bought Mayfair property with Davis as part of a ‘tax-saving scheme’ and 500 acres of Scottish forest next to Billy Connolly.
His limousine became a family run-around, blasting the Rocky theme while he jogged behind in marathon training.
The same car was later sold to an escort agency in Southend, said Barry. ‘They used it for sex on the M25. Pick you up anywhere; one lap of the M25; as many girls as you like.’
When he bought Mascalls, an 18th-century Essex estate which is now the current HQ of Matchroom, in 1982, Barry’s mother asked: ‘You’re not doing anything illegal are you?’
‘No, mum,’ Barry replied. ‘Chartered accountants make terrible gangsters.’
Similarly to Chloe, Barry’s wife Susan also does not appear in the documentary.
But this is more to do with her shying away from the camera than not cohabiting – she and Barry are understood to be going strong after almost 60 years together.
The couple met in 1966 and although Barry has described their relationship as ‘tempestuous’ this appears to be more out of respect for his wife’s robustness than an admission of marital fragility.
While Eddie was born into priviledge, his father Barry’s start to life was anything but. Barry’s story is one of rags to riches, beginning life in east London to become a chartered accountant
A self-proclaimed ‘tough b*****d’ Barry was born in 1948 in this council house in Dagenham, east London (since renovated)
Barry then grew up in this two-bed terrace in Debden, Essex before meeting his wife, Susan, in 1966, who he has been with for almost 60 years. They now live on a 150-acre estate near Chelmsford, complete with a cricket ground and fishing lake
In 1982 Barry sold his snooker hall for £3.1million and secured Mascalls an imposing mansion in the process. The property is now Matchroom Boxing HQ boasting an indoor swimming pool, fully-equipped gym and helipad for VIP arrivals
He said of Susan in his autobiography: ‘Once, we were almost having a fist-fight on Buckhurst Hill High Road…As I walked closer to her, believing we were friends again, she kneed me right in the testicles.’
Susan is a successful racehorse breeder. The couple now live on a 150-acre estate near Chelmsford, with its own cricket ground and fishing lake.
Snooker and boxing turned Matchroom into one of the world’s biggest sports promotional companies, while darts would later transform into a TV juggernaut under Barry’s watch.
When a 12-year-old snooker prodigy called Ronnie O’Sullivan walked into his Romford club, Barry quickly signed as his manager.
He twice went to meet his father, Ronnie O’Sullivan senior, in prison after he was jailed for the murder of Charlie Kray’s chauffeur Bruce Bryan in 1992.
Barry, who has promoted boxers including Nigel Benn, Chris Eubank, Prince Naseem Hamed, Frank Bruno and Joe Bugner, admits having had ‘very dangerous’ business partners but has always denied being a ‘gangster’.
He told The Sun in 2010: ‘I’ve never been shot or clobbered, although there’s no doubt a bit of that goes on in boxing. Put it this way, I have worked all over the world with some very interesting people. Very dangerous.
‘I’ve had business partners with machine guns stuffed down the back of their trousers. Others have been arrested and jailed.
‘But I have never had a serious problem even though I have dealt with a lot of serious people. That’s because I’m straight. I’m not a gangster.’
However, not everyone buys into the hard-man image cultivated by the Hearns – not least long-term promoter rival Frank Warren.
In a 2023 podcast with Simon Jordan, Warren accused the Hearns of acting like ‘gangsters’.
‘They make up their history, don’t they?’ Like they’re all tough guys,’ he said.
‘They talk like they’re gangsters.
‘Barry Hearn was an accountant but you talk to him, you’d think he was one of the mafia.
‘All the fights he’s had. He couldn’t go two rounds in a revolving door. They talk such garbage sometimes. And make up stories about themselves.’
Warren’s critique was met with a blunt response from Eddie, who replied: ‘I’m probably as far away from a gangster as you can ever be. I’m absolutely soft as s**t.
”Well you’re only where you are because you took over your dad’s business.’
‘Yeah, guess what, that was the hand that I was dealt. Deal with it. F*** off.’
In the six-episode Netflix series, Barry describes son Eddie as a ‘flash bastard’ but admits the ‘apple doesn’t fall far from the tree’.
He also questions whether he will hand over his empire to his son or sell it to the highest bidder – while Eddie tells of his struggles to match his father’s achievements.
He said of his father: ‘This a guy that built this business from under the staircase of the Romford snooker club. How do you eclipse that? It’s not easy.’
The docuseries also reveals life behind the imposing gates of Mascalls, now the beating heart of Matchroom.
More than 80 people now work at the grandiose HQ, located just outside of Essex, which boasts its own indoor swimming pool, fully-equipped gym and helipad for VIP arrivals.
Its walls are devoted to the Hearn dynasty, with pictures of the father and son and their sporting achievements – and even a striking topless portrait of Barry.
The documentary peels back the curtain on some of the glamorous young women who keep the empire running day-to-day.
Among them is Bella Gay, Matchroom’s head of ticketing, and Alix Spraggon, Matchroom’s stylish UK travel coordinator.
Emily Frazer, the CEO of Matchroom’s multisports division, is also given a leading role – detailing her drive to promote the nineball pool tournament the Mosconi Cup in the United States.
Ms Frazer described her involvement in the documentary as ‘overwhelming but exciting’.
Netflix’s Matchroom: The Greatest Showmen has captivated viewers with its intimate portrait of the boxing, darts and snooker empire built by Barry and now fronted by his son Eddie
The doc gives and insight into the lives of Barry and his colourful son Eddie – two of boxing’s most interesting characters. Eddie is here inside the Mascalls mansion by a portrait of his dad
She said: ‘Everything we’ve done before has been sport-focused, so at first I wasn’t sure why my story mattered. But the producers kept telling me it was incredible, and it made me realise what I’ve achieved in my career.’
Barry Hearn said in his autobiography of Mascalls: ‘All I hear, all day long, is the sound of laughter. All I see is people smiling. We must be doing something right.
He added: ‘The indoor swimming pool is fabulous, the sauna great and the jacuzzi top drawer – what else could you want for an early-morning workout?
‘We are a sports company, after all, and if you work for a sports company, you should live the life, keep yourself in shape. The gym and swimming pool are open to anyone who works at Matchroom whenever they wish.’
Barry’s daughter Katie Godding, 48, also works for Matchroom as director of programming and is CEO of its media production arm.
Eddie said she opted out of being in the documentary and has ‘has no interest in the limelight’.
