If the demented backstory behind Mike Tyson is something that interests you, I strongly recommend buying his new book “Undisputed Truth.” In it, Tyson talks about everything from his childhood to his fighting career to the time he hit rock bottom. The former heavyweight champion also documents his frightening cocaine addiction.
In a must-read excerpt from the book that Deadspin passed along, Tyson tells a story about the time Don King offered him a $20 million settlement to become his promoter again. One thing led to another and Tyson packed a “big block of coke and a duffel bag with a half-pound of reefer” and flew on King’s private jet down to meet him.
When Tyson was “higher than the plane was” during the flight, he said it occurred to him that he was the one who paid for the plane and that King was acting like he was doing him a favor. We’ll let him tell you what happened after he landed Fort Lauderdale.
The drugs were playing with my head and I was freaking out and getting jealous.
Don picked us up at the private airport in his Rolls and he had Isadore Bolton, who used to be my chauffeur before he stole him from me, driving some of Don’s associates in the lead car. We were driving down to Miami from Fort Lauderdale on the I-95. Don said some innocuous thing, and all that jealousy and rage spilled out of me and I kicked him in his f—ing head. Boom! You don’t turn your back on a jealous cokehead.”
Tyson said he then began choking King from the back seat and caused him to swerve onto the media. When Tyson got out to hop in the front seat so he could kick King’s ass some more, he wisely sped off and left Iron Mike and his close friend Jackie Rowe on the side of the highway. That’s when Isadore, the aforementioned driver, came back to pick them up and Tyson socked him too.
As for the drug habit, Tyson shed plenty more light on that when discussing how the police pulled up next to him when they spotted him on the side of the highway.
Then the cops came. They were talking to us and I had the half brick of coke and Luz was holding the duffel bag with the half-pound of weed. These cops were so excited to see me that the mother—-ers didn’t even ask me what we were doing on the side of the highway. They’d have put anybody else’s ass on that grass, and they’d be locked up for life for having all that coke. I’m an extremist. Why couldn’t I just buy an eight ball? No, I had to have a half a brick. The guys who sold it to me said, ‘Mike, this is sales weight. Police are not going to hear that you’re getting high with a half a brick of blow.’ And I had this as my personal stash.”
If this doesn’t make you want to buy the book, you probably had no interest in the first place. Whether you think Tyson is a moron or not, there’s no debating his life stories are incredibly captivating. Tyson recently revealed he still struggles with drugs and alcohol during this powerful press conference after his emotional debut. Hopefully he has gotten the help he needs.
