Tom Hardy The Krays SHOCK: 'Reggie was also BISEXUAL and their mum had his wife KILLED'

Tom Hardy gives a trademark towering performance (or performances) and both Kray brothers in Legend.

The gritty thriller biopic is on UK television tonight. It delivers a dark insight into the lives and minds of the brothers but is the hidden truth even more disturbing?

The documentary The Krays Kill Order speaks to friends and associates of the crime family and blows the secret lid on the best-known gangsters in UK history. 

It features some never-before-heard audio recordings of Reggie Kray and interviews with other notorious Krays contemporaries, including Frankie Fraser, Albert Donoghue, Lenny Hamilton, Billy Frost, Jimmy Tippett Snr., Albert Chapman and Bernard O’Mahoney.

The deadly duo would have been killed by their own gang, The Firm, if they hadn’t been arrested, says their former enforcer, Freddie Foreman.

He says: “They took the East End to Knightsbridge. But of course they burned the place like they burned everything.

“I thought they should be ironed out, to be honest.

“They was dangerous to everybody. If they hadn’t’ve been arrested when they were, that’s what would have happened.”

Their complicated sexuality is also examined in depth. Ronnie was well known to be gay, but recently doubts have been cast over Reggie’s sexual orientation.

Maureen Flanagan, former hairdresser to the Krays matriarch Violet, asserts: “They were both bisexual”

Witnesses say that Reggie’s unhappy marriage to Frances Shea was a sham, insisting that he was actually in love with her brother.

Even more shocking is the latest accusation about tragic Frances’ mysterious, apparent suicide.

Flanagan says that Ronnie hated how obsessed Frances has been with Reggie since she was a young girl and Ronnie’s uncontrollable violent temper was well know.

Criminal consigliere Toby Von Judge says: “Ronnie Kray was a sick, manic depressive all rolled into one.”

In fact, Ronnie has long been suspected of staging Frances’ murder to make it look like a suicide.

Flanagan adds: “There was only two people on Earth could stop him and that was Violet Kray and Reggie.” 

But, rather than Ronnie, this new documentary points a finger at Violet Kray.

Von Judge claims: “The mother had something to do with Frances’ death because Frances got pregnant. Nobody knows that.”

No charges have ever been pressed, but the Krays themselves were eventually brought down by London policeman Nipper Read. Click here for the story of the man who ended the Krays.

Not everyone involved is in awe of the Krays’ terrifying reputation, however.

Rival gang member Eddie Richardson boasts: “If they put me and my brother in a cell with them two, there’s only two people coming out…That’s me and my brother.”

Legend is on Channel Four tonight at 9pm