by Mike Tyson
Spike’s version was a lot darker than the Vegas show. Spike wanted it to be gritty, a true one-man show, just me up there with some slides on a big screen behind me and some recorded musical segues. I actually preferred the Vegas version but people seemed to enjoy Spike’s direction as well. We took Spike’s show on the road, touring all over the country in 2013.
Getting on stage to bare my soul is a lot like going into the ring to box. I can’t wait to get on stage but I’m also frightened to death. I’m like a racehorse just ready to burst out of the starting gate. I get out on the stage and I’m in control but also out of control. I have to rein myself in so I don’t talk too fast. I wasn’t born to do this but I learned to love it. Like almost everything else in my life, Cus was a big influence on the one-man show. I inherited Cus’s ability to tell stories. I’m not nearly as good as he was but I have that ability because Cus would regale me with classic boxing stories that were epic in scope, legendary tales of adventure and betrayal.
I’ve always had the profoundest veneration for great accomplishments. Money never meant anything to me but stories of great accomplishments always inspired me to rise to the highest occasions. Entertaining people doesn’t come as easy for me as boxing did. I hate what acting makes me do but I love how it makes me feel. I would do almost anything to achieve the accomplishment of entertaining someone.
I approached doing my one-man show the same way Cus taught me to approach boxing. I don’t get involved emotionally with that person up on the stage. You have to be emotionless but you also have to do it with all the passion you possess. All my problems in life came when I was Mike Tyson and thought I deserved shit – a beautiful woman, a cool car, a mansion. That’s when I got in trouble. I was always too impressed with my emotions. And soon the emotions became delusions. So I’ve spent my whole life since I met Cus trying to transcend myself.
But it was impossible to maintain that façade when it came time in the show to talk about Exodus. I had spent more time alone with Exodus than with any of my other children. I really knew her well. She was a true free spirit. A day doesn’t go by when I don’t break down and cry about my angel. I wear an earpiece during the show and Kiki sits backstage and gives me verbal cues when I need them. When it would come time to talk about Exodus, a beautiful picture of her would come up on the giant screen. Kiki would always say, “Look back at the picture.” But I couldn’t do that and still be able to get through the show.
In early 2013, I made two guest appearances on highly rated TV shows. On February sixth they aired my appearance on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. I played Reggie Rhodes, a murderer on death row who gets a reprieve when he reluctantly testifies that the man he killed had sexually abused him when he was a child. I was so psyched for that role. For once I wasn’t playing myself. They had to spend an hour putting makeup on my face to erase my tattoo. It was such a privilege to work with such great actors on that set. But then, before the show aired, more controversy got stirred up.
A woman started an online petition to force NBC to cancel that showing or boot me off the episode because I was a convicted rapist. She got a lot of publicity for this and her petition was signed by more than six thousand protestors, including NCIS star Pauley Perrette. At my publicist’s advice I responded.
“I’m sorry that she has a difference of opinion, but she’s entitled to it … [but] this lady wasn’t there to know if I did or not. I don’t trip on that stuff, I’m not trying to get rich and famous, I’m just trying to feed my family. Why should they care? Since I am clean and sober five years, I haven’t broken any laws or did any crimes. I’m just trying to live my life.”
That was my Uncle Tom response. What I really felt was that I had been broke for ten years. I had a family to feed and support. I’m not going to get rich from doing special-guest appearances on TV shows. What do these people want, for me to die? How am I going to make a living? If I can’t work mainstream, do they want me to do porn?
Luckily, the creator of the show didn’t buckle down to pressure. Dick Wolf issued a statement.
“I invite you to watch Ed Asner, Andre Braugher and Mike Tyson guest star in The Monster’s Legacy episode of Law and Order SVU Wednesday, February 6th, at 9 o’clock on NBC. In my opinion one of our strongest episodes in the last five years as it focuses on what can happen when there is an emotionally charged rush to judgment.”
I was also gratified that my friends, the ladies on The View, defended my right to work.
My other appearance wasn’t at all controversial. I played myself on an episode of How I Met Your Mother. That experience was amazing. The show was run by these awesome ladies who created a totally family-type experience. All the writers, the producers, even the security guards and cleaning people had been working together for years. Women can put a touch on things that no men can. Working there was like being in a big puzzle and everybody had their piece and it went off flawlessly. I had a great time. Listen, I don’t know if I am a good actor, but I know I love to act, and I know just from the love of acting something good will come out of it.
The national tour of Mike Tyson – The Undisputed Truth, my one-man show, began on February 13, 2013. By some weird coincidence, the opening night was in Indianapolis. I was really scared about going back to the place where I had been incarcerated for three years. I felt like I was in the house of hate. Driving from the airport to my hotel, checking in, I felt something heavy over my head, a distinct feeling of discomfort. The day before my show, I went out to the prison. It was something that I just had to do. Part of my A.A. contract is to make amends with people for my past bad behavior and when I was in that prison I was just an animal and a jerk.
I was shocked to find that Warden Slaven was still working there. When I was in, he was an assistant warden but now he had worked his way to the top. He’s been there for forty-four years. Slaven was always such a wonderful guy. He would come in the hole for hours and hang out and talk to me. When I saw him again, we just bonded. He explained to me that he couldn’t keep in contact with me because he still worked there but he was going to retire shortly and he was going to look me up. He didn’t look the same. He had white hair now. He was a bit slimmer. But his energy was still so awesome. He’s a real Christian; when he comes into a room you can palpably feel his spirituality.
When I left the prison, I just started to cry. I didn’t think I’d do that but I felt like a weight had lifted off me. I realized that I had no problems with the city, I had issues with the prison. It was like I had been purified after seeing Slaven. It was incredible, I didn’t think at this stage of my life I would feel that kind of feeling.
One thing I learned after completing my tour was that all I know how to do is entertain people. I don’t care if it’s ten thousand people or five, I love to perform. It’s not easy because I’m basically shy. Even when I was a kid, I had the urge to perform. But when I would try to talk, some big guy would kick me and say, “Shut the fuck up, nigga.” But Cus promoted the idea that I was there to entertain. “If you listen to me, every time you walk in the room, people won’t be able to take their eyes off you. You’ll suck all the air out of the room,” he’d tell me. I’d feel like a peacock.
I know that I’ll never again be able to turn on the Action News and hear, “Mike Tyson just signed a multimillion-dollar deal …” Those days are over. But I can continue to entertain people. I won’t make much money, but I can do what I love to do. And just by doing what you love to do, out of love, good things happen.
When I look back on my life, it’s hard to believe how big an entity I was at the height of my fame. I was different than the rest of the big stars because I was flamboyant too. And I was just an immature child, really in over my head. I felt like I was part of a freak show for most of my career as a boxer. Later, I just felt like a freak. I’m truly grateful I don’t have to live that way anymore. I’m reinventing myself, as they say. Now instead of filling up seventy-thousand-seat stadiums I’m doing mor
e intimate venues. Maybe God is giving me what I can handle now.
All I wanted back then was to be glamorous and glorious. That’s why I fucked all my money away. I just wanted glory, glory, glory. Your whole objective is to win honor, but as time goes on in life, I realize that honor cannot be won, it can only be lost. Then I got that epiphany that everything I knew was a lie and that I had to start over. I had to be respectful to my wife. I couldn’t refer to women as bitches and guys as niggas anymore. I couldn’t have forty-five girlfriends and be married. How the hell did I ever do that? Maybe you can do that when you’re a low-key guy but I did that when I was champion of the world. Do you have any idea what that was like? I was constantly dealing with pregnancies, abortions, diseases. One gave me gonorrhea. Another one gave me mono. I was living in a big West Nile virus swamp.
When you’ve never had anything, you tend to want to accumulate a lot when you can. But as you get older, you realize that life is not about accumulation, life is about loss. The older you get, the more loss you experience. We lose our hair, we lose our teeth, we lose our loved ones. Hopefully we learn to be strong from those losses and we can pass on our wisdom to the people we care about.
I’ve caused many bad things to happen to people. I was so selfish when I was young. I was the first one to say, “Shoot that motherfucker, that nigga needs to die.” Then I’d see guys bleeding on the floor and I’d laugh about it. When I’m with my old friends from Brooklyn I’ll say, “Remember when we fucked up that guy who tried to kill us that day?”
My friends will say, “Fuck that shit, Mike, we out here now.”
Maybe they thought I was wired. They don’t like to talk about the things we did. My friend Dave Malone would always say, “Mike, by the grace of God we’re here.”
I’m so glad that I’m not that guy anymore. Now I’m totally compassionate. And this is no religious rap. I don’t believe in confessing your sins to get into heaven. I don’t believe in an afterlife. This world is it. And it makes sense to do good in this world for your own moral existence. Doing good feels better than doing bad. Believe me, I should know. I’ve gotten away with doing a lot of bad things. There’s no satisfaction in that, only in doing good.
I’ve really come to a place of forgiveness. I’m not mad at anybody like I used to be. Back then, I never understood what a waste of time that was. I don’t hate Bill Cayton or Jimmy Jacobs for what they did to me. We all had a lot of good times, they gave me my start and I should be very grateful to them. I’m more bitter about myself than anyone else.
I’ve had an extraordinary life – the good, the bad, the ugly, the not so ugly, the very ugly. I don’t even harbor ill will towards Don King. I hear he’s not doing very well healthwise. And I’m writing a book. Those guys thought I would be dead or be a loony-tune by now. They never in a million years thought that I could be telling the truth about them now. They thought their lies would die with them.
I still have a lot of work to do. I have to try to really love myself. Not on a superficial “I’m great” level but to really examine who I am. That’s going to take a whole bunch of struggle, a whole bunch of thinking, and a whole bunch of therapy. I can’t underestimate how much therapy has played a role in changing my life. I think of Marilyn and all my doctors and counselors in my various rehabs and I’m eternally grateful to them. Marilyn took me to a place that I could never have been able to go. I might not be totally there, but she took me to a place where I could live, I could survive, in my confusion. I’ve still got some mental and emotional issues but I’m learning to live in this world, be happy in this world, where before I could never have been happy with a hundred million dollars. I could give it away, but I couldn’t get shit done. I don’t even have one percent of that now and I’m getting shit done. Marilyn visualized me being a respectable man with my family, staying in the house. Before, you could never keep me in the house.
When you’re a young kid with a ton of money and girls, God is not really paramount in your life. As you get older, you realize that from a spiritual perspective your life has been a waste. You never did anything to help people collectively. I need to be of service rather than just going around doing meet and greets and collecting money. I feel dirty after my appearances. People come up to me and say, “You were great. You were my hero!” No, I’m not. I’m filthy and I’m wretched. But I want to make up for it now, pay back in some way. I don’t want to offend you if you have any veneration for me, but it’s just that I’m very shallow and simple and I just want to do something good and help people.
Kiki and I started a charity called Mike Tyson Cares. We’re providing resources for kids from broken homes but I want to concentrate now on the mental condition of these children. You can’t give kids a fighting chance if you don’t give them a fighting mind. I know what it’s like to be misdiagnosed at an early age and be put on medication that’s capable of killing you. It’s not just kids. Do you know how many people are in prison right now who need to be in a mental hospital and not behind bars? We’ve got to reform that.
People often ask me what I regret in my life. I regret sleeping with all those women. I used to brag about that but now I’m so embarrassed by my conquests. I’m so happy to be with one woman. I still enjoy looking at girls but I never ever think of crossing the line and saying something out of line. You aren’t going to see me on Page Six in a nightclub with a table full of gold diggers.
I finally realized that I had to look for a different type of woman than my mother. All her relationships were dysfunctional. The more my mother fought back the more these men loved her. The more she’d scald them with boiling water or stab them, the more they bought her presents. That was the power structure in my household. Women that fought men. But Kiki is not that kind. I’m so happy I broke that cycle.
Kiki dug me out of the gutter and cleaned me up. I owe a great deal of my blossoming as a functional human being to her. I never thought that after boxing I would be famous, still living my life, making a career out of my life. I figured that I’d be dead or at best owning a bar. I could see myself off the cocaine but I never thought that I’d give up alcohol. I thought I’d be overweight for the rest of my life. And here I am being responsible, working, taking my kids to school. I owe all that to Kiki.
I’m a Cancer and I always tried to rescue women. But I don’t look at Kiki as a damsel in distress who I have to take care of. I see her as an equal in life with me. She’s capable of doing everything that I’m capable of doing. If someone gives me a job to do, I’m great at that. It’s only when I have nothing to do that my mind tempts me to fuck up. I haven’t gotten arrested since being with Kiki because I’ve got something to do. We make this stuff go well. Even if it doesn’t look well from anybody else’s eyes, it is going well for us.
I never thought I’d say something like this but I’m really happy being married to my wife. She’s the best thing that ever happened to me. I’m safe here. Some interviewer once asked me where I felt most comfortable – hanging out in Cannes or on the streets of Brooklyn. And I told him that I’m most comfortable in the presence of all my family members and we’re safe. I can wake up in the morning and everybody is there. I can see them.
Sometimes I think that I switched my addiction from drugs and alcohol to getting involved with my family. I know how much trouble and humiliation I can bring down on them with just one hit of blow or one drink of Hennessy. I don’t want to let them down in any kind of fashion. Like I did with boxing, I want to put all my energy into living with my family. I know there’s an empty hole in me and I spent a lot of years trying to fill it with drugs and booze and sex. I think it all goes back to our mortality. We know that all this is temporary. I’m going to grow old and die tomorrow or ten years from now or forty years if I’m lucky. But when you’re with your family, it makes you feel like you’ll last forever.
You get to this age and you just thank God for letting you live another day. He didn’t owe us that day. So you have to liv
e every day like it’s your last. And you have to take personal responsibility. You can’t blame things on society. If you want to be a better person you have to look within and overcome that. You are your own worst enemy. I know I am my own worst enemy. The only guy who wants to kill me is me. If anybody else treated me the way I treat myself, I would blow their fucking brains out.
I don’t mean to preach. I’m the last one to tell anybody how to live their life. I’m not in control of my own life. I’m just following a map. Do you feel me? I’m following the sound of a fucking flute. Living life on life’s terms. I hate that phrase but I use it a lot to keep myself in check. Sometimes I still think I’m in control, even after all that time in rehab and my burning through hundreds of millions of dollars. That is my grand delusion. I think I’m a hell of a motherfucker but I’m just a bum.
I’ve always sought comfort from my pigeons. No matter where I lived, I had them with me. And I collect a special breed of pigeon. They’re called roller pigeons. Sir Anthony Hopkins played Hannibal Lecter in that great movie and he talked about them.
Do you know what a roller pigeon is, Barney? They climb high and fast, then roll over and fall just as fast towards the earth. There are shallow rollers and deep rollers. You can’t breed two deep rollers, or their young will roll all the way down, hit, and die.
It’s no surprise that I have an affinity for rollers. It’s really something to watch them fly higher than all the other birds, way up to the top of the sky and the clouds and then just roll and roll and roll down and if they’re lucky, pull out in time before they crash headfirst into the ground. Rollers who are the offspring of a pair of deep rollers can’t do that. They roll so fast that they create a suction and they can’t open their wings and they just explode on impact. It looks horrific to us but if we put ourselves into the heart of that bird there’s nothing like that feeling of plummeting down and rolling. It’s a smorgasbord of endorphins and dopamine and adrenaline. A little like snorting coke and drinking Hennessy while being hooked up to a morphine drip.
