Icon Ronnie O’Sullivan is gearing up for an epic comeback as he’s pitted against arch-enemy Ali Carter at the 2025 World Snooker Championship.
The snooker ace, a seven-time world champion, has been off the competitive scene since January following a surreal outburst where he snapped his cue and dumped it mid-tournament during the Championship League in Leicester. He has candidly discussed his recent lack of enjoyment in the sport but has decided to step back into the Crucible this week after rumours swirled that he might skip the event for the first time in over three decades.
O’Sullivan is now poised for a spicy clash on his return, having been lined up against Carter for the opening round, reigniting their notorious enmity. The pair made headlines back in 2018 when O’Sullivan notably shoulder barged Carter, and The Rocket even labelled Carter a “f***ing nightmare” post allegations of O’Sullivan “snotting all over” the baize during a different face-off. Now 49, O’Sullivan is focusing on letting his snooker skills speak for themselves, with many aspects of his tumultuous personal life, ranging from a public breakup with a celebrity actress to his father’s startling criminal history, consistently grabbing the spotlight in the past.
O’Sullivan, undisputedly snooker’s biggest star, boasts an estimated fortune of around £20million. The 49-year-old has amassed approximately £14.5m in prize money alone throughout his career, which kicked off when he was just a teenager. O’Sullivan boasts an impressive 41 ranking titles, including 23 Triple Crown victories.
Despite being largely absent from the 2024/25 season, the previous year saw him pocket £1.25m in prize money after clinching victories at the Shanghai Masters, UK Championship, the Masters, World Grand Prix, and World Masters. When he’s not raking in substantial winnings at tournaments, O’Sullivan also earns a tidy sum through lucrative sponsorship deals with tech firm ROKiT, Eurosport, and snooker company BCE Riley.
O’Sullivan had an on-off relationship with Laila Rouass, known for her roles in EastEnders, Holby City and Footballers’ Wives, for over a decade before they finally ended things last year.
The pair first met in 2012, when Rouass was shown around O’Sullivan’s house while she was property hunting. The snooker champ later asked her out via the estate agent. They got engaged just a year later and were together for nearly 10 years before parting ways in 2022. They briefly reconciled but split again at the start of 2024, with Rouass later sharing reflections on how she coped with the breakup on Instagram.
“Break ups can strip you down to your essence,” she penned. “I got through mine by using pain as fuel to take control because no matter what, we will lose parts of ourselves in relationships. It’s normal, don’t beat yourself up. One thing I’m conscious of not doing is trying to get back where I was. No, I’m discovering who I’ve become. I’ve been through various emotions… hurt, pain, anger but what I’ve realized about anger is that it’s bottomless.”
O’Sullivan has three children from previous relationships. He first became a dad to Taylor Ann with ex-Sally Magnus in 1997. He shares a son, Ronnie Jr., and a daughter, Lily, with his former flame of eight years, Jo Langley. He took on the granddad mantle at the age of 42 when Taylor-Ann had a baby girl in 2018.
O’Sullivan’s world nearly came crashing down when his dad, Ronnie Sr, was locked up for murder in 1992 following a fatal stabbing in a nightspot. The ex-owner of multiple sex shops in Soho, Ronnie Sr, had once been his boy’s guiding force in the early days of snooker but ended up serving an 18-year stretch for murdering Bruce Bryan, chauffeur to the notorious Charlie Kray.
Ronnie’s mum, Maria, spoke of her heartbreak at being unable to tell her son directly about his father’s arrest, encouraging him instead to fly to a tournament in Thailand as a distraction from the crisis unfolding at home. In the Amazon Prime documentary “Ronnie O’Sullivan: The Edge of Everything,” the snooker legend recounted a harrowing moment from his youth when he “collapsed” in his hotel room upon discovering his father’s crime.
Maria, Ronnie’s mother, recalled the dilemma she faced in telling her son the shocking news: “I couldn’t tell Ronnie,” she said. ‘He was due to go to Thailand about three days after. I thought that if he goes there three days earlier, he won’t know what’s going on, his dad will come back out, it will be a mistake, and he won’t know any different.
“This guy John takes him to Thailand but Barry Hearn said, ‘Maria, you’ve got to tell him because it will be in all the papers tomorrow’. So I phone up and I said, ‘Ron, your dad is in prison, they’ve done him for murder’. I heard him screaming down the phone. He just collapsed in the hotel room. I shouldn’t have sent him. My regret now is that I should have told him straight away but I thought I’d protect him. It was wrong and I don’t think he ever forgave me for that.”
O’Sullivan himself emotionally added: “My dad was being carted off, he’d been sentenced, he just looked up to the woman and he just said, ‘Tell my boy to win’. Typical. ‘Just tell my boy to win’. That was it. F***ing 30 years ago. Part of me was thinking, ‘F*** you and f*** this, just f*** everybody. 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.
“I didn’t want to blame everything on that situation with my dad,” he added. “But I just think I would rather not have the snooker, just have a normal family. Not had to have gone through that. Forget the snooker. Just normal.”
O’Sullivan has been candid about his struggles and recently shared that he’s given himself a deadline to reignite his passion for snooker or else retire.
Speaking to MailOnline, the 49-year-old snooker legend revealed that despite winning two world titles since then, he hasn’t truly enjoyed playing since 2018. He’s not hanging up his cue just yet, but he’s clear that if he doesn’t find joy in the game within two years, he’ll step away.
“I’m not quitting just yet, but I will give myself two years to try and figure it out,” he declared. “I don’t want to finish my career feeling like I wasn’t really performing to the level that I know I can. I don’t have to win tournaments, but I just want to feel like I’m enjoying the game. I’d like to go out with a smile on my face.
“Do I think I can do it? Probably not if I’m being honest. I think it’s probably a bit too late in my career and I’m probably damaged goods in the form of a snooker player. I wouldn’t want anyone that I care about to go through what I went through. From the age of 12 to 16, I loved the game. If that had continued through my career, I’d say to my kids, ‘Yeah, go and play snooker, it’s been amazing’.
“But I’ve had a lot of problems from 17 up until now and it takes its toll on you. It starts to sap away at your happiness. You take a lot of battle scars over the years. But I’m not prepared to quit at this point because I feel like I would be quitting on a bit of a low. Most people who live in the real world probably have four or five different jobs in their career. But as a sportsman, you only get one, so you have to stick with it whether it’s good or bad. You have got to stay in it until you decide that it’s not working for you.”
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