I will make you hurt: HP Interview with Mike Tyson

"By the time I was 12 I had already been locked up over 38 times. Juvenile detention centre was like Cheers; there everyone knew my name.” It would be fair to say that Mike Tyson didn’t have the most advantageous of starts in life, born into grinding poverty in the NYC ghetto of Bedford-Stuyvesant to an alcoholic crack- addicted prostitute mother and an absentee father who was both a preacher and a pimp. Bullied as a kid and widely known as ‘Little Sissy Boy’ owing to a pronounced lisp, he was carrying firearms by the age of nine and experimenting with cocaine by age 11.

Tyson also very rapidly became the toughest kid on the block, en route to discovering temporary salvation through boxing. By age 20, he'd become the youngest world heavyweight champion, but he was far more than that. Briefly but brilliantly, the young Tyson was the single most ferociously destructive force the sport had ever seen, a status unlikely to ever be equalled.

The fairytale didn’t last: Tyson’s personal demons rendered any sort of happy ending an impossibility. Emotionally disturbed, prone to bouts of extreme violence and impulsive behaviour, with a voracious sexual appetite, he was convicted of rape and imprisoned in 1992, though question marks about the validity of the conviction persist to this day. He was released after three years but was never quite the same force inside the ring, while his personal life continued to be a car-crash marked by recurrent drug addiction, intemperate sexual activity, mental illness (he has been diagnosed as bipolar), bankruptcy and tragedy (his four- year old daughter died in 2009 in a domestic accident).

Mike Tyson is a man of many contradictions: an attested communist who can ‘bling it’ with the best of them, a peace advocate who has displayed the mental capacity to bite and sever another man’s ear, and without question the most quotable, compelling and intriguing sportsperson of his era. He's currently touring his one-man show Undisputed Truth, in which he speaks candidly about his personal and professional life. Here he is...

PD: The show is funny, surprisingly so at times. What was the secret of the writing process?
MT: Well my wife wrote the dialogue – but every night was a different show because we ad-libbed, we worked off the dialogue and we extended more lexicon to it more or less (laughter). And so yeah it continues to go on. I saw Chazz Palminteri – he did A Bronx Tale on stage in Las Vegas – I watched it and I was explaining to my wife, "I believe I can do this, because when I do my meet and greet thing in Europe or Asia, I’m on stage telling people about my life and the only difference is that I’m taking questions from the crowds." I decided if I was going to do the one man show, I would do it without taking questions from the crowd.

Can you talk about the fake penis story and trying to dodge drug tests?
Well, on occasions, I would smoke marijuana and drink liquor. And if anyone smokes marijuana, it stays in your system for at least 35 to 40 days. Right? So I didn’t want to get penalised, so I had to use a fake penis which we called a Whizzo, and I would collect urine from someone who doesn’t smoke or anything, and pray to God that when I get it from my wife she’s not pregnant and we get a pregnancy test! nd that’s what I did. It was a fake penis and I would pull it out quick in front of the person who was watching me, so he could be offended. You see, you pull it out and then he turns his back and I would clip it and start peeing.

Why didn’t you give that idea to Lance Armstrong?
I believe they took his blood, that’s why.

You said you have a lot of pain inside you. What do you do to ease pain?
Hey, I have a different scheduled life now. I’m really busy with my book and my wife and my children and it’s just dealing with life. When life turns I will go to my meeting, and
in fact, it’s so ironic – I used to go to my AA meetings right here and I used to always pass this beautiful building. And I have 100 days sober now, and this is the best in me, and I’m really doing well, and I’m just grateful. And that’s what I’m trying to convey to everybody, is gratitude. I have a great deal of gratitude now, more than I have ever had in my life.

Are you going to fall off the wagon again?
Well I don’t know, I hope not. I don’t have no intention of doing it, but I’m only human and anything is possible. It’s strong and baffling, this disease that I possess.

You and Evander Holyfield (a portion of whose ear Tyson bit off during a notorious 1997 fight) have become quite friendly. What’s the situation with Lennox Lewis? I was at the pre-fight press conference in New York, which was quite a brawl.
I don’t have any hard feelings to him, and he didn’t have any hard feelings to me. And hey, I’m just here living my life, he’s living his life, and I’m not angry at him and I'm sure he’s not angry at me.

Are you friends?
I ‘m friendly with everybody. If we’re not friends, it’s because someone is not friendly with me.

Do you know Barry McGuigan?
I know Barry. We’re friends. He came to some of my fights and I watched him when he was kicking everyone’s ass. I’ve been in Ireland a few times. I spent a long time in Sligo a few years ago with a very mad man – I won’t tell you who. I had no idea how much you guys hate the English! My friend told me all about Cromwell. That was some bad shit he did.

Doing The Hangover it seems introduced you to a whole new group of fans. Are you planning to do more acting?
Yeah, I am. As you were saying, there’s a whole different generation of fans out there, younger kids that never saw me fight. Periodically, you hear a young child say: "Hey mom, there goes Mike Tyson the actor", and then their parents, who are older of course, have to explain to them: "He’s a fighter, he did this, he’s been in some movies but he’s really a fighter". But I’m just really happy to be in the particular situation that I’m in now. I love to act and I love the stage more than anything. And I’m looking forward to seeing what’s next.

What did Spike Lee bring to the film?
Well when the film first started, I had a rock band. I had a piano playing, I had a song, a lady singing, and he took all of them away and put me on a stage, emotionally naked, dealing with it, by myself.

During your heyday, you were known as the biggest, baddest man on the planet. What do you miss from that time?
Nothing. It’s a different life. I had to be a different person to be that particular individual, and to be this individual; that guy doesn’t exist in this world.

What do you think about how boxing is portrayed in popular movies?
It’s really interesting. When an actor is portraying a boxer, very rarely is he going to get the fundamentals of the fighting down. You’re not going to learn this overnight: either you have boxed before and you’ve got the fundamentals down, or it’s just going to be disastrous as far as the boxing scenes are concerned, which you see in many boxing movies. But it’s more about touching the essence of the fighter. And that’s why certain movies like Rocky are so successful, because they are horrible fight scenes, but the insight of what a boxer goes through, and his determination and his perseverance, even under the most depressing and most decimating of times, and degrading times, he has to be knocked out, once, maybe twice in a row, but he still doesn’t give up, he still fights as if he knocked the guy out, when they fought. And that’s just what it is. But if you can capture the essence of a fighter, that’s when the movie is really successful, is when you have got his essence more than his fighting skills, because all it takes is spirit to be a successful fighter. Without the spirit, I don’t care how successful, how beautiful you look as a fighter, but you have to have that wanting, that desire, that winning spirit.

What was the first movie you remember seeing and are you a big moviegoer?
Well, it’s very difficult to watch movies now because they’re out for a week and next thing you know, they’re on television or in the hotel. They don’t stay in the cinemas long. And they always sell them on the streets and stuff, like they don’t have that in Dubai, so it’s really hard to go to the movies now – and we have a lot of kids and stuff, so it’s hard to do that movement.

Through your extraordinary life, your image has changed a lot. Is the reaction to you different now?
People just want a picture – and they say they really enjoy my acting. I don’t get too many comments about my boxing, but they talk a lot about what I'm doing now, and what I'm doing in the movie, on stage, my HBO show, and they ask me when’s the next movie.

In terms of acting, you seem to be a natural.
There’s nothing natural: anything I have comes through a lot of hard work, even through experiences. Nothing comes natural to me. I have to work pretty hard for it in order to do it.

What did you learn from Don King about promoting?
I learned to make sure these guys get their money, all their money. That’s what I make sure (laughter). I love entertaining, I was born to entertain people and be on camera and stuff. Even at my lowest moment in life, it’s just a reality show. So this is what I was born to do. My father was a showman, my father was in church and always singing in church, and doing this little pimping stuff and all that stuff, and that’s a form of showmanship, the control and all the attention is on you – so I guess that’s where it comes from.

You tell a hilarious story about your ex-wife Robin Givens and Brad Pitt. Did you really think he was a woman when you saw him at your house with her?
Well, that’s a true story. It was from a distance. And he was really good looking and he had long hair, and I couldn’t see that far and I thought it was a woman, and then when I got close, I realised it wasn’t. And he wasn’t scared, he wasn’t scared at all, but I just said that in the show because you would expect him to be – but if he was scared, this was his first good true appearance of being a method actor, because he didn’t show any appearance of being afraid. He just said "hi" and I said "hi" back.

How cathartic was it for you to write this book and to do the stage show?
Well, none of it brought any calmness to me. I didn’t really get no therapeutic release. But doing the book was really difficult, because of my childhood and stuff. I had never read the book, but my wife went over it with my ghostwriter and asked questions and explained the book and we went over it and made sure that everything was done appropriate. That was really difficult to do. But to be on stage was awesome, because it was fun. There were people there that had good energy, from the crowd, so I could really be objective. Unlike the book where it’s in my face constantly, the questions, reliving what happened, it was kind of difficult.

I’m interested in how you came to your Islamic faith?
I know that I am Muslim and I am black, but I deal with Muslims on a humanitarian perspective. I don’t look at a Muslim, he is black – he’s just a Muslim and we all have our own salvation with Allah, but I am not politically inclined with Islamic religion and stuff like that. I am a Muslim, which I am grateful to be a Muslim, and Allah doesn’t need me, I need Allah, so my own salvation is with Allah. I have no relationship with anybody but Allah. I have no political relationship with any Muslims, any Christians, any Jews, anybody. My own religion, my relationship is with my salvation with Allah.

In the show you talk about your spiritual journey and how you ended up embracing Islam in prison.
You know, that’s just who I am. I want to love all of God’s creations, I want to be humble. I’m not saying that I am – in fact, there’s no way I am humble: for me to even use the word humble shows you that I am not humble. But I would like to be that way. I want to be a Muslim, I am going to be a Muslim, this is who I want to be in life, this is what I chose in life. Being a Muslim is not blowing up people and killing people and being a terrorist. That’s just somebody that’s jealous of how we live our life over here. But you could be a Muslim and be a terrorist – but you are just a Muslim who is a terrorist. And it’s not about the teachings that Allah taught Muslims, it’s about being selfish and wanting power for yourself. And I don’t want that: I want to be a servant of Allah and that’s what I am striving to be, just his servant. And many times I am going to fail on my course, but I keep getting up, and keep trying, and that’s just my relationship with Islam. My own personal salvation.

Were you inspired by great boxers like Muhammad Ali?
I love and admire Muhammad Ali, but it’s not because he’s a Muslim. I admire him for his stand against the Vietnam War, or his great, gruelling fights, which he persevered and overcame, and as I was saying, again, as far as being a Muslim, it’s my own salvation with Allah. I will have to deal with him eventually, but on my own and regardless of what anyone says about my religion, it’s him who I have to answer to.

You’ve been very rich and successful from boxing and you’ve also been declared bankrupt. What’s your attitude to money these days?
My wife handles most of the stuff with my money, because if it’s up to me to handle money, it's going to be disastrous. It’s just never good. If you gave me ten thousand dollars and you said, "Mike, this is what you need to pay your bills", and you give it to me and I have to pay my bills at that moment, fine. But next month, I’m not going to pay my bills. That will be till the day I die. If I have a nickel, I'm going to spend that nickel. That’s why my wife handles that stuff and we don’t have those problems anymore. If someone wants to give me money, it all goes to the IRS anyway.

In the show, you talk a lot about your mother. When she passed away, you were very poor and you could only afford this little grave for her, and when you got money, you changed it. How much has your relationship with your mom shaped you?
I picked up a lot of bad habits from my mother. I'm very vulgar sometimes, and that’s something that I'm working on. But it’s just what it was. She’s my mother, and my mother didn’t like me, because when I went to Cus (D’Amato, legendary trainer), I never had an ego before, so I went to Cus and Cus told me all these great things. And so I came back to see my mother and told her how great I was and this was going to be the way it is, and I am the greatest fighter in the world and nobody better dare even think of beating me, you watch. And she couldn’t understand that. And that’s all I knew, because Cus brainwashed me to believe this stuff, and she didn’t think I was humble enough. But that’s okay, that’s alright, that’s my mother. I love my mother – she didn’t have good life skills, I didn’t have good life skills, and so all the trouble I got into, I was fortunate enough to have, and learn better life skills than herself. And my father. And it doesn’t mean I’m better than them, just that I had better opportunities than they had. And I love my mother. That’s all I have to say.

Is there anything you are afraid of?
Hey listen, I don’t want to fail on being a good father, being a good husband, I don’t want to destroy my marriage or my relationship with my kids. I’ve already done that in my other marriage, my other relationships, and I’m pretty much on a good path of developing respect with my children. I can say we are friends now. ‘Cause when I was heavyweight champion, I caused a lot of wreckage and I made a lot of amends and I’m just happy we have a relationship that when we talk to each other, we have an opportunity to talk and be friends.

What are you most proud of? And have you regrets?
I'm most proud of being sober for 100 days, and not getting high or using drugs again. And I don’t know if I have any regrets, because anything that I experience in life allowed me to be the person that I am today. Without those experiences, I probably would have never been who I am today and I never would have been able to overcome my adversity and my quagmires and be here talking with you tonight. And so all those adversities and them horrible times that could have been regrets, pretty much informed me to be the person that I am now.

With fighters, there’s a lot of sad stories out there. You have another life...
That’s not because I’m better than them or smarter than them by no means. I was just fortunate enough to have a better support system. That’s the only reason. Listen, I tell this to people all the time: I always look at Leon Spinks, because that’s me. Leon Spinks, people look at him, they laugh, he’s a clown, that’s me. So I never laughed at him. But I had such a wonderful support system, so I wasn’t allowed to go that route. I did the drugs, I did the disgusting women, I was living the life – I’m drinking, I’m out all night, I was living in the den of iniquity, doing all these bizarre things. But I still had the perseverance because I had a good woman by my side, and I had a lot of good friends. I was just very lucky.

How big a struggle is it for you now to stay sober?
It’s a struggle for me daily. I’m the kind of guy, get five years, relapse. Five years, four years, six years, relapse. If I could stop, from right now to the day I die, and not relapse, that would be a really big success story for me.

What triggers relapses?
Well, this can trigger it: it’s a lot of love contributes to it, a lot of hate contributes to it, emotions, people, places and things, my ego can trigger it. I am great now, so this is all good, that can be bad. That’s how my mind works. Someone in here said they drink a lot, so maybe, if he's an alcoholic, which he may not admit, our minds work differently. One drink is too many and a thousand is never enough for me. And that’s the illness that I have and I have to deal with it, and I don’t know: no one can help me but me.

Back in August, you said there was a time in your life when you thought about ending it.
Yes.

Can you talk about it?
I had a time where I would get tired of living, I don’t know why. Maybe that’s just who I am, maybe that’s just the mental illness that I have I guess.

When was this?
It could be a long time ago, it could be recently, but sometimes when I'm depressed it happens, when I’m on drugs or something, I always get tired – and tired of being in pain.

You say you're mentally ill.
I don’t believe normal people think the way I think. I wouldn’t be drinking and using drugs if I was normal. We live in a drug nation, we live in a drug world, sure, and I have no exclusivity to this illness. I didn’t create it, it just is what it is.

But you seem very peaceful and to feel good about yourself.
When I’m in front of the world, talking to the world, about anything, not necessarily about me being great and all, because that’s really garbage. But my success is different than being a successful actor, a successful fighter: success for me is not going to prison, not dying in the streets, not cheating on my wife or leaving my kids, and so what I'm doing now is really successful, this is successful for me. Not winning the Golden Globes or the Emmys or Oscars – that’s just something I acquire with my skills, with my hard work. But for me to be a success, I have to be a family man, I have to be considerate, be of service to humanity, and that is success for me, when my ego is not running wild.

You talked about your wife, can you tell me a little bit more about your love for her?
If I tell you my love for something and my definition of it, then it wouldn’t be love. That’s why it’s love because I can’t grasp it, I don’t understand it, but it’s there and it’s my undying loyalty and my undying breath and I don’t know, but it’s just how I feel towards her.

Tell me about putting the tattoo on your face.
It must have been 2002, and I wanted to put hearts there, but the artist, he doesn’t do stuff like that. "I am an artist, so I only do artists work", he said. "I only do artists work". So we talked about this and this is what we came up with. It’s tribal, from the Maoris of New Zealand.

Meaning what?
That I am a warrior: this is their war sign.

What do you like to spend your money on?
It depends how much I have!

Let’s say ten thousand dollars.
I have no idea. Maybe stuff for the house or something. A room. But if I had ten million, I might buy a new house! Just joking, just joking IRS!

Do you remember the first time you kicked someone’s ass?
Yeah, I was living with my pigeon. This guy killed my pigeon, so I had a fight with him. I didn’t kick his ass that bad, but I hit him more than he hit me, and so I kind of won.

How emotionally difficult is it to do a show like this, over and over again, talking about the most painful parts of your life?

See, that’s why the book was more complicated – ‘cause on stage, I'm in my world. This is not me that we’re talking about, this is some guy that I’m portraying, and talking about him, and I’m really objective when I’m on stage. The book, I look at my writer, Larry Sloman here, and so he’s talking to me and he’s asking me these questions, and you have to answer them: "Yeah, did you do this, or no, I didn’t". That’s how that goes. And you’ve got to relive that stuff again, and that’s when it gets bad. We were supposed to do the book two and a half years ago, and he asked me a question, and – actually 2008 I believe it was – and the next thing you know, he asked me some stuff.
I was drinking and using drugs and he asked me and all that yucky stuff started coming up from the past, and the only reason I was taking drugs was to mask that. And it started coming up and I said, "Just come back tomorrow". I hadn’t seen him for two years. I was just avoiding him, and the next time we met, I was married, I was financially devastated, and my wife was explaining that someone is going to do your book regardless. So why don’t you say that in your own words, so your children hear you say your own story out of your own mouth. And so me and him sat down and we started doing the book. And it still hurt a lot. It really was painful, but I guess we did it and I was truthful as I could possibly be. And we got it done eventually.

And what gets your angry today?
No one gets me mad but my wife. No one can get me angry: the only person who can get me angry is her. She’s the only person that could push my buttons.

You seem very self-aware. Have you spent a fortune on therapy?
I don’t know if I'm eloquent or have any wisdom, but I have to be honest with myself, that I conduct myself as a gentleman this whole day, that today was a good day for me, that I did something out of character, was I disrespectful to somebody today, did they deserve to be disrespected by me today? Did I deserve to talk to them in that fashion?
And certain things have got to be examined about your life, if you want to live a certain way in your life, you have got to examine it. Because you are going to make mistakes, you have to make amends, and say "sorry "to people for hurting their feelings. I am pretty premeditated on my life now. Nothing is really from the flow, from the cuff. Everything is examined and re-examined.

Mike Tyson plays the Olympia Theatre, Dublin on March 27