MIKE TYSON might be fighting Jake Paul on Friday night but the biggest battle of his life has come outside the ring.
The legendary heavyweight, 58, who became the youngest world champion in the division’s history at the age of just 20, suffered years of addiction to sex and drug addiction.
Mike Tyson holds the record as the youngest ever world heavyweight championGetty
Tyson and actress Robin Givens had a one-year marriage in the late 1980sGetty
The boxer battled sex and drug addiction for yearsAP:Associated Press
Tyson has hailed third wife Lakiha Spicer for turning his life aroundGetty
Nowadays he has a calmer persona, largely thanks to the influence of his third wife, Lakiha Spicer.
He does still regularly smoke cannabis – although he has claimed he has given it up while training for the showdown with YouTuber Paul.
But his current dabbling in recreational drugs pales in comparison with stories of his various addictions from years ago – which stretches all the way back to him taking acid at the age of just 11.
Many of Tyson‘s sexual exploits took place during the height of his boxing fame in the 1980s.
Sex with groupies before fights
His former bodyguard and chauffeur, Rudy Gonzalez, recalled back in 2021 that Tyson would have sex with “groupies” in the dressing room before fights to avoid “killing” his opponents.
Gonzalez explained: “One of the greatest secrets with Mike was that he needed to have sex in the dressing room before fights.
“I would have to find a groupie, it did not matter who it was. He’d say ‘if I do not get laid I will kill this guy right now’.
“Mike had to get laid to disengage some of the strength he had. So I had girls tucked away in bathrooms and changing rooms.
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Tyson and Givens married when the boxer was in his early 20sGetty
They swiftly separated but carried on dating, before Tyson caught Givens in bed with actor Brad PittGetty
“Sometimes he’d go in with them for a minute, bang the s*** out of them, snap his neck and say: ‘Okay this guy is going to live tonight’.
“His biggest fear was that he would kill someone in that ring. He knew he could do it.
“I still see some of the guys he fought. I was there at ringside seeing these huge men crying, bones shattering or their blood flying everywhere.
“It is no exaggeration to say Mike was like a train hitting these guys. Having sex was his way of disengaging that power and loosening up a bit.”
‘Pure hell’ living with Tyson
Tyson had a whirlwind 12-month marriage to his first wife, actress Robin Givens, in the late 80s.
Prior to their official separation, Givens described her husband as a “manic depressive” and labelled living with him as “torture, pure hell”.
They continued seeing each other after their divorce, before Tyson walked in on Givens sleeping with Hollywood actor Brad Pitt.
Tyson went to prison for three years in 1992 for the rape of Desiree Washington.
But being locked up did not curb his sex addiction as he claimed he slept with a prison counsellor in the hope of having his sentence reduced.
After being released, he tied the knot with second wife, Monica Turner, in 1997 – a marriage that lasted six years.
Tyson married second wife Monica Turner in 1997Reuters
They split in 2003 after Turner filed for divorce claiming Tyson had cheated on herEPA
They ended up having two children together – Rayna and Amir – but the relationship did not last as Turner filed for divorce after claiming adultery.
Many of the years which could have been Tyson’s best in the ring were curtailed by addiction issues.
While heavily addicted to cocaine he walked his pet white tigers around wearing only his pants, tried to fight a gorilla in a zoo, and hosted orgies with scores of women, including mothers and daughters.
He even claims to have cheated boxing drugs tests by using a fake penis and urine from his ex-wife and daughter.
Speaking about that period of his life, he said: “Cocaine was a hell of a drug and back then I was out of my mind living crazy.
“I was not being responsible or being present. But that is what my life is all about now.
“The little bullied kid I was growing up is always inside me but now I know how to protect him.
“I didn’t know how to do that before, that’s why I was doing such crazy stuff and getting in trouble.”
Tyson was jailed for assaulting two men in 1999 – having served three years for rape between 1992 and 1995AFP
Tyson admits he was drunk and high when meeting The Hangover cast in 2007Getty
Tyson’s addiction to drugs went on for a number of years while his run-ins with the law also continued as he was jailed for assaulting two men in 1999.
In 2003, he filed for bankruptcy after blowing his £330million fortune.
He has also admitted to being drunk and high when meeting the cast of the 2007 film The Hangover in which the boxing icon plays a cameo role.
In 2012, when discussing the filming of the movie, he told The Planet: “I was a mess. I was overweight. I was a pig, high on cocaine.”
The woman who tamed him
Things began to take a turn for the better in 2009 when he married third wife, Spicer, 43.
The pair were first introduced by promoter Don King who introduced Spicer to Tyson when she was 18 years of age.
They finally began dating in the mid-2000s and married two weeks after the tragic death of Tyson’s daughter, Exodus – one of his seven children.
They tied the knot shortly after Spicer served six months in federal jail for defrauding £60,000 from a company owned by her father.
Tyson has spoken glowingly about the positive impact third wife Spicer has had on himGetty
The couple have now been married for 15 yearsRex
Yet despite being locked up herself for a short period, Tyson insists Spicer has had a hugely positive effect on him.
She left prison carrying Tyson’s baby and found the ex-boxer hopelessly addicted to drugs.
While he still smokes weed – and now owns a cannabis business – he has stopped taking hard drugs thanks to the support of his partner.
He told US magazine People: “I’m very happy me and my wife got together, because I don’t know how I would have survived out there.”
It is true, Tyson is not a completely changed man, admitting on rapper T.I.’s ExpediTIously podcast as recently as 2021 that he had only been faithful to Spicer for the last two years.
But he is an improved person heading into his boxing return against Paul.
And he puts that positive change down to the impact of Spicer who he has two children with – daughter Milan and son Morocco Elijah.
Tyson added: “I’m a soldier. I can’t think for myself. I need someone to do it.
“I know myself. Without my wife, I’m a wild animal.”
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