By Guillaume K. | Sports journalist
Mike Tyson was an explosive fighter in the ring, but also outside of it. In fact, in his younger years, he had a hard time handling fame serenely. At 57, he opened up about the worst aspects of this life in the spotlight.
Not everyone is ready to handle the celebrity life, especially when it’s global. For a long time, this was the case with Mike Tyson, and how can you blame him? Indeed, the most terrifying boxer in history had a more than difficult childhood with an alcoholic mother, ties to Brooklyn gangs, which made the transition even more brutal…
From a criminal, he became the hero of many fans who had never seen such a mix of speed and power. From a pauper, he became a multi-millionaire capable of affording absolutely everything he wanted, including a pet tiger. From an unknown, he became a man unable to leave his house without causing a riot.
Mike Tyson Cashes in on Fame
And it’s a topic he brought up on tennis player Nick Kyrgios’ excellent podcast. With touching honesty, the “Kid Dynamite” looked back on his early glory years and how he nearly lost everything because of his explosive temper. Clearly, at the time, he didn’t know how to deal with overly insistent fans.
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“The Chechens are panicking in front of him. Fortunately, they and Gane are not fighting…
At first I handled my fame very badly. When you’re young you want that fame that comes with being a champion, but you don’t really control anything. That’s when I had problems. You walk down the street and people don’t know that my mother just died, that my brother just died. They jump on you and ask for pictures, talk to you… When I was in a bad mood, I could be violent in those moments.
Then I had so many lawsuits that I had to calm down, I didn’t want to pay anymore. Everyone was attacking me, I wasted so much money on lawsuits… I was in contact with the wrong people, I was making the wrong business decisions. Nothing was going right. I was caught in a whirlwind of self-destruction. It all started with the fact that I hated myself.
Then when I started wanting to love myself, to show myself that I loved myself, everything changed. And love isn’t buying myself a new car or a new house. It’s giving that to someone else. I learned that pretty late in life. The more money you give to other people, the less you feel the need to have it. Funny how it works.
It took Mike Tyson a while to understand what fame entailed. So in his younger years, he wasn’t shy about attacking those who were a little too direct with him in their interactions.
