Undisputed Truth: My Autobiography

by Mike Tyson

  Both of my parents were deep rollers. I was bred to climb to the top of the sky and tumble down. And I’m truly grateful that I found my wings before I hit the ground.

  Sometimes I wake up and I just know it’s going to be a bad day. I think that no one loves me and how I’m not going to have the life I had planned to have when I first started out, and then I think that I might hurt someone. Then I wish that I was under a rock somewhere. I don’t know how to live every day. I try. I do everything I can to thwart any forms of violence. I’d let somebody kick my ass to prevent me from fighting back. I thought you’re supposed to get more mellow as you age but I’m getting more irritable and bitter.

  Even though I have a loving wife and children, I feel like I threw my life away. Don’t get me wrong, I love my family. I would die or kill for them. That’s part of the problem. I want my children to have a better life when I’m dead and I don’t know if that will happen. I don’t know if they’ll have a much better life than I had in Brownsville. They might be middle-class kids. These days I drive an Escalade. Some people might think that’s great but in my mind an Escalade isn’t good enough to give to a prostitute. I still owe money to the IRS. I’ll probably die before I pay them off. I’m not making much money now. I’m looking good but I’m making nothing. I’m a bum. I can’t believe my wife is still married to me. I feel like a dog.

  I just don’t have a good psychological opinion of myself. I hate myself sometimes. I feel like I don’t deserve anything. Sometimes I just fantasize about blowing somebody’s brains out so I can go to prison for the rest of my life. Working on this book makes me think that my whole life has been a joke. I’m a dark and jaded motherfucker. I hate living like a peasant now. I don’t know if I’ll survive to the next day. I might just say “Fuck it” and jump and leave.

  Sometimes I can’t sleep. I think that the reason I get so emotional is because of all the drugs I’ve fucked with for some many years. Your emotions get out of whack. I have a lot of pain and I don’t know how to let it go. I used to be the toughest guy on the planet, and now I cry at the slightest provocation. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I think I’m falling to pieces sometimes.

  I’m a waste. The only thing I did was fight, fuck, and bring in kids. Boxing, bitches, and babies. My baseline normal is to destroy myself. And when I don’t do that I think I should get rewarded. I’m the quintessential addict. I’m a piece of shit who thinks that the world revolves around them. I have the lowest self-esteem in the world but the biggest ego God could ever create. I’m such a glory junkie that I’ll have to die in front of a crowd. I can’t die in isolation. I’d say shit like, “How many people are there on the planet? Five billion? I could beat every one of them in a fair fight.” Who would say crazy stuff like that? A lot of people have money, a lot of people have fame, but nobody had the gall like I did. Most famous people allow their fame to be bigger than them and their fame rules them. I wanted to be bigger than the fame.

  I’ve been betrayed so much in my life that I don’t trust people now. When people make you feel like you’re incapable of being loved, you keep those feelings and they never go away. And when you feel incapable of being loved, then you want to hurt people and do bad things. What’s the purpose of doing good things in a situation like that?

  I think about where my mother and father came from. We’re street people. I did things that they never dreamed I could do. I know it doesn’t mean anything to anybody but when you come from sewage it means a lot. Even my kids don’t know who I am. I know they have their childhood issues they deal with but they’ve never lived with rats and dogs in the sewage. They don’t know how to hide in shit-infested sewage water so someone doesn’t kill them. And I’m proud to be from that world. It’s nothing to be proud of, but I’m very proud. My kids can read and write better than me but they can never surpass me in the hard knocks of life. And I don’t want them ever to have to.

  And I still hang out in the ghetto. I’m just a ghetto rug rat. Sometimes I’ll look over at Farid and say, “Why are we here, Farid, when we could be on a yacht in Saint-Tropez? Why are we with these broke-assed niggas?” Because those broke-assed niggas are our people. They’re struggling day and night. I love those rotten, dirty motherfuckers even though I can’t trust them as far as I can throw them.

  I can take anything. I think about Nietzsche a lot. I know what the Overman is. I know I can endure without killing anybody, because I’m always close. Some people don’t have any decency or respect. When we’re out and we see a guy like that, I’m thinking, I wish he would say something to my wife, I’d blow his brains out. Those people are out there but I’ve got to stop that way of thinking. I’m trying to restrain that, to be this new guy. But how much of my balls do I have to cut off to be this new guy?

  Why am I not worried about fucking other people since this is going to be my last time around? All my life that’s all I thought about. But now I’m not thinking about fucking nobody else. Am I grown up now? What am I doing being married with two kids? I’m a street dog, I’m not a house dog. If I still thought in my mind that I was this hoe-entangling motherfucker with the big schlong I wouldn’t live like this. So either I’m suppressing my ego or I’m just losing my spirit. I’d like to think that I’m with my wife and not fucking around because I’m ready to be down and I love her. Or is it that I’m just broken down and I don’t have any balls anymore?

  All that rage and energy that propelled me to fuck all those women, where did it all go? Why have I lost that sexual growl? Is it just a function of getting older and losing hormones? I might see a girl and think “Wow” but I don’t have the desire to say “Hey, baby.” And don’t tell me about Viagra or Cialis. That shit ain’t the same thing as natural desire. It doesn’t make the mind function. It’s like having a gun with no bullets. It doesn’t give you the fantasy you need in your mind.

  All my life all I could ever do was make money for people. My love was always under the circumstances of Mike Tyson providing stuff. Who would I be if I was never Mike Tyson? How would I form relationships? I don’t know what it’s like to go outside and initiate a conversation with someone. I’ve never had to do that. Sometimes I look at myself and I say, “Mike, you’re a pussy. What the fuck are you doing? You’re going to die soon. You’re going to give all this pussy up and you are going to be with this woman that you’ve been sleeping with since she was twenty-four for the rest of your life?” I’m sure that my wife sometimes feels that I’m overbearing because I’m with her too much. I’m that way because I want her to know that the reason I don’t go out much is to show her that I’m here with her. We’ve had those trust issues before. But then I become a burden to her, being home a lot.

  I can’t find a balance between the two. I’m not a balanced person. It’s not like I can say, “Well, I’ll just find another woman to be devoted to.” If I’m not going to live this monogamous life with Kiki, then we’re going to get in trouble now. I’m going to do drugs, I’m going to fuck a bunch of strippers and prostitutes, I might catch a disease, and I might make some guy jealous and he’ll blow my brains out.

  I’m not a relationship guy. I don’t stand up for myself in a relationship. And I don’t like that about me. If I’m not a pussy in a relationship, then I’m dominating them. Either I’m a henpecked bitch nigga or I’m going to start brutalizing the woman. One or the other, there’s no middle ground. And I don’t want to brutalize them, so I wind up being the wimp.

  I’m insecure when it comes to being in a relationship. And why not? Growing up all I saw was men beating their women, women scalding their lovers, or a man killing another man over a woman or vice versa. That was my culture. Now I’m in a relationship where I’m suppressing my baseline normal to be in a normal relationship. And the selfish addict in me is saying, “Where’s my reward? I think I deserve more for behaving this way.” I want a reward for improving myself as a person. In a million years my wife would never understand what my baseline normal is.
It would scare her to death. My baseline normal is having a bunch of girls in here, no matter if it’s their mothers or their sisters, and fucking them. No female species allowed on the premises without fornication. It’s that crude. I threw all that away. I spared my wife and the babies from all my diseases and all my filth. And I want something back.

  I can’t believe I’m even in a relationship. I don’t think I’m a good catch. I’m ignorant, I have a lisp, I pronounce words the wrong way sometimes but still people want to give me pussy and be in my presence because I’m Mike Tyson. But I’m the worst catch. I’m a self-centered brat. I can’t live with myself; why would anyone want to live with me? Whenever I’ve been in a relationship I’d always think, Bullshit, this can’t be real. This woman doesn’t love me. How can I be more special than any other people?

  Sometimes I think that one of the reasons I got married was to stop women from setting my ass up. It’s better to be married to one woman and be happy with what you have than to be a mark, a sucker to a whole fucking constellation of women.

  For me life is a constant struggle for survival. I tell my wife that and she says, “No. The world is beautiful and positive.” My wife is a facilitator. She takes care of people. She wants everybody to be in happy mode, satisfied and not angry. That’s not a reality in life. Kiki wants to be a friend to everybody and when you are a friend of everybody, you are an enemy to yourself.

  “Hey, try to put your arms around the world,” I tell her.

  She just calls me a miserable vegan. But you just can’t make everyone happy. If you’re not conscious, they’re going to fuck you, hurt you, and take advantage of you. She doesn’t see the evil in people that I do. I look at the world through the eyes of hell.

  I’m starting to freak out now that my name is in the papers all the time and I’m constantly on television again. I’m worried that I can’t deal with fame and that I’ll get violent again. My wife keeps saying, “You can handle it now.” But I just don’t like it when I’m a target. Now that my wife is writing, maybe she’ll get some more shows launched. Then she’s in this whole writing world. I get very overprotective about her because she’s all I have. I don’t have forty-five other bitches anymore. I focus my whole energy on this family and all of that energy might be overbearing sometimes. I’m scared. And when I’m scared, that dickhead Iron Mike comes out.

  Now I’m an entertainer and I’m entering a whole different world – the world of showbiz. I’m dreaming and thinking that one day we’re going to hit the mother lode and things are going to be great again and I can take care of my kids and I can die with dignity, but that’s not going to happen. Everybody knows how show business can be. And if I get screwed, that’s just going to trigger all the times that I got played by Don and then I have to go into that mode where someone is going to get hurt. That’s the world of show business? Then meet my world of violence. And then I’m back in the joint and my wife is married to somebody else and he’s probably fucking my daughters. That’s how it goes.

  There’s no doubt that I have some self-hatred issues. I’ve done some bad things to people. I can read any of the great books on morality – the Torah, the Koran, the New Testament, the Bhagavad Gita, whatever, and I just know I’m going to hell. And I was born in hell. And any time I came up in life it was one step out of hell. I think that part of the reason that I gave away so much money (and I’m not talking about buying prostitutes cars) was because I’m an ignorant child and I believe this was a way to cleanse my sins and buy my way back to heaven. I was kind and giving to people because my soul was so black from my earlier deeds.

  What am I doing with my life? I love entertaining people but I’m only happy for that little time that I’m up on that stage. I was happy for a moment when I was boxing but a lot of it went away when Cus died. I never wanted to be Iron Mike. I hated that guy. That’s the guy I had to be in order to survive. But I’m stupid for doing that.

  Sometimes I don’t know if I was even made for life. I think I’m an aberration of fucking nature. I’ve got to deal with people constantly shooting at me and throwing arrows at me. And nobody hears if I scream out in pain. I hate my life, I hate myself. If I had balls, I’d kill myself. That’s it, that’s how I feel …

  Then my little sweetheart Milan walks into the room and my cloud is lifted.

  This is my reward for acting responsibly, right here. When she’s away at school, I’m always grouchy and the minute she comes in, my whole life changes. This is where my ego stops, right here. I think about some of the crazy things I’ve done, like that road rage incident in Maryland. I’m so mad at myself. I had no hope back then. Even if those feelings came back I can’t even fathom acting out now. I’d never want to disappoint the situation now like I did with my other kids. I could never be at the point of being so out of control that I would jeopardize Milan or Rocco. I’d have to be shot first. I’ve learned to bite my tongue because of my kids. A lot of times when I want to say things that are going to be nasty, I just bite it. It’s my turn to embrace these responsibilities. This stuff is not as stressful as fighting. I might blow it up, but it’s nowhere near as stressful.

  I can’t believe how my kids with Monica turned out. When I was younger I would have despised kids like them. They had it all, the nice house, the nice car, European trips since they were young. They had maids their whole life. The corners of the wall remind me of the beatings I got from my mother. My son doesn’t have that fear. I always thought kids should sacrifice to get things. That was my upbringing with Cus. You win this fight, I’ll give you this. If my son does something good or not, he’s still going to get it.

  I just didn’t have any love or security growing up. I look at my children and tease them and say they’re wimpy kids, but that’s what would have happened to me if I grew up with love. I’d have been just as wimpy. Hey, this is how I am now getting love late in my life. I’ve done things like biting Evander’s ear that have caused my kids to be teased. That’s just something they have to deal with. They surely haven’t been picked on and teased worse than I was. They haven’t been snatched off the street and beaten. They all go to private schools and, on paper, they have cool friends. My friends were pimps and killers, robbers and thieves.

  I don’t have any parenting skills at all, not even to this day. I know my wife must think I’m a Neanderthal, but I’m doing my best. My older kids should be grateful that they didn’t have my father as their father. He wouldn’t be laid back waiting for a check every month. He’d tell the girls, “You don’t need anything from me. You’re sitting on your moneymaker.” I never told anybody to sell her pussy. They’d see how bad bad is if my father had got their mothers pregnant.

  Speaking of kids, I’m taking care of that fifteen-year-old boy that’s still in me. I have the tools, I can do that now. He hasn’t gone anywhere. He’s still traumatized, but he’s living a productive life now. It’s awesome. I could never do this when I had $300 million. I’m out here raising kids, being a respectable husband, not having to worry about giving my wife a venereal disease. I’ve never been in this space in my life before, and this is just going to be so awesome. I never thought I was the settling type, I thought I deserved the world, but I feel safe here. This is where I want to be. I get to nurture my children and grow deeper with my wife and it feels good in my soul. That’s why I’m here.

  I could never go out at night again. That’s just not going to happen. I could never be me again because a lot of people would be unhappy. I believe I keep the peace by being at home a lot, because people would never think I’m somewhere doing something I shouldn’t be doing. Sometimes I think my wife would rather me go out sometimes. When you’re around too much you can become overbearing. I don’t care who you are. The real me probably wants to have some friends and shoot dice, have fun. I don’t do that anymore. Now fun is hanging out with my little girl and getting to know her and Rocco. And hopefully developing a better relationship with all my other kids. My oldest daughter M
ikey is living with me now in Vegas. That’s been great. But I don’t have any man cave where me and my friends could go to smoke cigars and watch football.

  Another reason I stay in the house is to avoid getting involved with people outside. Before I went out on my Undisputed Truth national tour I stayed in so I wouldn’t come into contact with strange people giving me bad vibes. I’d go outside for a minute or two and then come right back in. When I used to go out a lot it felt good but at the end of the day I was paying out of pocket to settle suits, apologizing to a bunch of people on television and maybe even doing time. So I don’t go that route anymore. I stay in the fucking house because I don’t want to get into an altercation. Can you believe that shit? But it’s necessary. Cus had programmed my mind to be a switch. I could be an emotional wreck and in the blink of an eye, boom, it changed. Sometimes I’m uncomfortable to go outside because I don’t know when that shit is going to click. I really don’t. When I’m outside on the street, I’m so scared of myself – how I might perceive a situation to be something it’s not. I have a lot more power over it than I did when I was younger. When I was younger I was programmed to attack all the time. That’s why I got into so many street brawls when I was champ. My ego got attacked. Cus was an ego guy too.

  “This guy said what to you? What did you do about it?”

  I was a little fucking kid and he was going, “What did you do about it?” That’s a part of me I always wanted to go away. I just never know what might trigger that shit, even an innocuous “Hey, guy” and then, boom, I was ferocious.

  I have a pretty upside-down schedule now. I go to sleep at about six or seven, unless my wife gets me to watch a TV show with her, then it might be nine. I wake up at midnight or two a.m. Then I ride the stationary bike for an hour, do the Treadmaster, and then do squats. Today I did two hours with weights for my legs.