I WAS hoping MADONNA had found a knockout new man in Brit boxer Richard Riakporhe – but he has insisted they are just good friends.
He met the Like A Virgin singer last year after modelling for Burberry and is now hoping she will cheer him on at his world title fight tonight.
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Asked if there was any romance between them, coy Richard told The Sun: “She’s just a friend, just a friend. I’m a gym rat so I don’t really have time to see a lot of my friends.”
But hinting he loves spending time with Madge, he added: “She’s a great person, I know her quite well.
“Her whole life has pretty much been in the public eye. She’s good company. Madonna is Madonna!”
We told last month how the American mother-of-six had grown close to Richard after splitting from her toyboy lover, US boxing coach Josh Popper.
In October, she shared a racy snap online of her straddling Richard, captioned: “I had to sit somewhere.”
He said: “It was just a party. That picture happened a while ago . . . She’s told me she wants to come to the fight. We’ll see if she can turn up.
“It all depends on a few other variables. That would be great to have her down.”
Richard takes on Chris Billam-Smith for the WBO cruiserweight world title tonight at his beloved Crystal Palace’s Selhurst Park stadium.
He said: “I’m really looking forward to the fight. It’s something I’ve worked my whole career for. Everybody comes into boxing wanting to become a world champion and I have my opportunity now, which I’m gonna take with both hands.”
Richard is also a partner of charity Street Child, which helps kids to access education in struggling countries such as Nigeria, where his parents are from.
He said: “They flew me out to north east Nigeria, around the area [terror group] Boko Haram operate, to do charity work with a displaced community caught up in the conflict.
“It was really sad, really eye-opening. They’ve been affected in every aspect, for example education.
“When Street Child got involved, they trained some of the locals to teach them.
“I was really happy to be involved, to be able to support the community.”