by Mike Tyson
“This one is just fine,” I said.
I thought this was some pimp/ho shit, so I reached into my pocket.
“How much do I owe you? How many dineros?”
“No, no, no,” he said. “You are family now. This is your wife.”
This woman was wonderful. If I needed anything, she’d get it for me. She was so attentive. We walked around a bit and then we went back to this guy’s house because he wanted to make us a nice dinner.
His wife cooked some nice lobsters and then the guy brought a couple of bottles of wine to the table. I couldn’t believe my eyes. One of them was a bottle of Lafite Rothschild. That was a $2,000 bottle, but these people didn’t have money like that. They were living in what was basically a run-down tenement building. I thought that maybe somebody in this guy’s family had worked at one of the hotels that Meyer Lansky owned and when the revolution came, they took off with this bottle. He was trying to be hospitable, bringing out his nicest bottle of wine, but I didn’t have the heart to drink it. So I suggested that we open the cheaper bottle.
My host planned a big night out for us. We were all going to go to the spectacular stage show they put on in the Copa Room at the old Hotel Habana Riviera, which used to be owned by Lansky. The only problem was that on the way to the Riviera, I had to lean my head out of the cab and projectile vomit. I didn’t realize it at the time, but the lobsters had been boiled in unpurified water and I must have gotten a bad case of Montezuma’s revenge.
I tried to make it through the show but I couldn’t. I was as sick as a motherfucker, but that didn’t stop me from being my pervy self. I wanted to get my girl back to my hotel room. I was thinking that this vomiting shit was going to go away and my dick was going to get hard.
So I got my wife and I thanked my host by giving him a beautiful expensive ruby bracelet I had on, and then we got a cab back to my hotel. My girl had never been in a nice hotel because the Cuban government doesn’t allow locals to go into tourist hotels. They claim that they do that to protect the tourists from prostitutes who might slip them a Mickey and rob them but I think they just don’t want the Cuban people to get a taste of the luxury life.
Before I could get to my room, there were Cuban TV film crews set up in the lobby. I guess the news that I was there had spread. I was bare-chested and I didn’t have any underwear on and my pants were loose from all the vomiting and you could see my plumber’s crack, so the last thing I wanted was the paparazzi to film me. I went berserk. I picked up some of their equipment and threw it at them, then I grabbed three glass Christmas ornaments off the tree and chucked them at the press. I punched one of the photographers in the head. I went crazy, but the paparazzi picked up their cameras and split.
When we got to the check-in desk, I thought that I’d have to finesse my girl inside, but the receptionist told me that government officials had called the hotel and that it would be okay for me to bring any guests to my room. We went to bed and the girl was on me, but I was so sick I couldn’t do anything. I felt better in the morning, and Rick and I were flying back to Jamaica on an early flight. I had sex with the girl before we left and she was sad that I was leaving. I had given away all my money and most of my jewelry except for this diamond chain I was wearing that was worth fifty or sixty thousand. To me that was like buying a candy bar. She was hesitant to take it, but I forced her to. I was hoping that she’d sell it and make enough money to support her whole family for a few years at least.
I left my girl in the hotel room and I met Rick in the lobby. We went to the airport to wait for our plane and we were both ravenously hungry, but Rick didn’t have any money on him either. I was surrounded by tourists asking me for my autograph, so I started bartering the autographs for food.
“Please, if you would be kind enough to buy us some food for the autograph?” I asked. In case they didn’t speak English, I demonstrated by pointing to the food stand and making believe I was eating.
When I got to Cuba, I must have weighed 270, but when I got back to Jamaica, I had lost about thirty pounds. I hadn’t considered that I had food poisoning or some parasite. In fact, it wasn’t until one of the girls I had brought from New York saw me that she triggered a huge alarm in my head.
“Mike, you lost so much weight, even though you haven’t been training. You look good,” she said.
Oh shit, I thought.
I was convinced I had AIDS. When I had taken those strippers home that night before I had gone to Cuba, I was fucking one of them and my rubber just popped. And as soon as the woman realized what had happened she had a really strange look on her face. I was convinced that she had given me AIDS. But maybe she thought that I had given it to her.
I was worrying the whole flight back to New York. I was also still a little high from the last of the coke I had in Jamaica. Usually I just breezed through customs with the royal treatment, but this time I was met by people from Homeland Security. And these guys were all hard-asses.
“What were you doing in Cuba?” one of them asked.
How did they know I was in Cuba? It wasn’t on my passport. Then I remembered the fight I had with the paparazzi in the lobby of the hotel. It was all over the news.
“I was just hanging out for New Year’s,” I said.
“So you figured you’d just take off and go to Cuba for a New Year’s vacation for a day, disregarding the laws we have in place that prohibit travel to Cuba,” the official said.
“I did it from Jamaica,” I said, as if that was any better.
“Did you spend any American funds?” he asked.
“I had Cuban currency but nobody took it. They only take U.S. dollars over there,” I told him. I bought Cuban money because I thought they would take it, but I got scammed.
This was not the best time to be caught sneaking into Cuba. Bush had just been elected and he said that he was going to crack down on any relations with the Castro government, so I played the religion card.
“Am I being held here because I’m Muslim?” I asked the lead interrogator. “This ain’t no Muslim shit. I’m just trying to have a good time, brother.”
They all laughed. Once I get a laugh out of people, I’m a ham. So I gave them a little shtick and they said, “Go ahead, you can go.”
I was still sick and losing weight when I got back to the States, so the first thing I did was to make an appointment to see a doctor. I just knew I had AIDS. I started calling all my friends to say good-bye to them. I even called Monica and told her that I had AIDS and that I was going to die. That might not have been the smartest move.
I went to see a Spanish doctor and he did the AIDS test. It came back negative.
“Nah, doctor. I have it. You’re not doing this shit right. Get me another doctor,” I said. He started laughing.
“Mike, you’re HIV negative,” he said.
“Did someone pay you to say I don’t have it?” I said. He finally convinced me that I was AIDS-free.
I was also worry-free. I had a huge fight in a few months with Lennox Lewis for the heavyweight title, and I was fucking around in Jamaica and Cuba not even training, just living a crazy drug-fueled life. I had to be nuts.
Then I started getting fallout from the Cuba trip. Darrow was seriously concerned that the Bush administration was going to make an example out of me.
He sent out a memo to my whole boxing and legal team.
“As you are no doubt aware, Mike is alleged to have traveled to Cuba and to have committed an assault on a Cuban journalist while there. I am less troubled by the assault (it is unlikely the Cuban government would be able to extradite Mike given the current status of Cuban-American diplomatic relations), than by the fact that the Cuban American National Foundation (CANF) has petitioned the Department of Justice and the Department of the Treasury to investigate Mike for criminal violations of the Cuban Assets Control Regulations and the Trading With the Enemy Act. It is difficult to determine how seriously the Bush administration will take this matter. Unfortunate
ly the Bush administration, in order to repair the damage caused by the Clinton administration’s handling of the Elian Gonzalez matter, has pledged to organizations such as the CANF to enforce strenuously travel and trade restrictions.
“Obviously, I was unaware of Mike’s visit to Cuba. To the extent that Mike was there for a statutorily exempt purpose, or to the extent that Mike’s Cuba-related expenses were covered by a person not subject to U.S. jurisdiction, and that Mike provided no service to Cuba or a Cuban national, we should attempt to confirm this as soon as possible.
“Lastly, it is my strong advice that Mike cease from making any additional statements regarding his travel to Cuba. Specifically, I was contacted by Tom Farrey of ESPN who purported to have numerous photos and quotes related to Mike’s travels. Apparently, Mike is alleged to have stated that he was there as a tourist and to support the ‘people’ of Cuba. We refused to confirm that Mike was in Cuba. The bottom line is that Mike should not travel to a foreign country without first consulting legal counsel. This is particularly true given his status as a felon and a registered sex offender.”
Darrow was always there for me. Nothing ever came out of that Cuba trip.
But right after I got back, Monica filed for divorce. I guess she had had enough of my fooling around, because I sure did a lot of it. Calling to tell her that I had AIDS probably didn’t help either. And the fact that I had just had a baby boy with this stripper in Phoenix was icing on the cake. I couldn’t blame Monica. What kind of marriage was it where I could fuck five different girls a night and then just send her money? I don’t know if we were ever in love.
I had met my baby momma Shelley at a strip club in Phoenix. I really liked Shelley. She kept her house immaculate and she did a lot of stuff with me. She was a fitness freak, so when I’d work out and go run, she’d run with me. I’d run five miles, she’d run ten. She’d always one-up me. One time, my assistant Darryl and I were throwing around a fifteen-pound medicine ball and Shelley got in on the action. She and I threw the ball two hundred fifty times and I got sore, but she kept on throwing it with Darryl. This ninety-pound Mexican chick must have done five hundred throws. She wore our asses down.
Shelley tried to work on our relationship. She’d talk to Hope and get tips from her on how to keep me happy. When she got pregnant with Miguel, I had no idea how I could take care of another kid. I was broke and in debt by then. She kept saying she was going to get an abortion, but she didn’t.
The Lewis fight was scheduled for April so I didn’t have much time to stop doing coke and weed and start training in earnest. I was still high on coke when I flew to New York to do a big press conference with Lennox on January twenty-second. They had us facing each other on slightly elevated platforms on one big stage at the Hudson Theatre. The Showtime announcer Jimmy Lennon Jr. introduced each of us like it was a real fight. As soon as Lewis was announced, I lost my mind. I looked over at him and wanted to hit the motherfucker. So I got off my platform and went up in his face. I guess Lewis was expecting trouble because he had about ten huge forest-tree-looking motherfuckers hiding in the wings, so as soon as I did that, they all came rushing out. I was only there with a few of my bodyguards, Anthony and Rick and my trainers and also Shelly Finkel. The Lewis camp must have thought that we’d see these big guys and run.
I moved up to get in Lewis’s face and one of his bodyguards pushed me back, so I threw a left hook at him. Lewis then threw a right at me and Anthony threw one back at Lennox and all hell broke loose. I found myself down on the ground with Lennox, but he was so tall that when we went down, I didn’t fall by his head; I was down by his leg. So I bit him on the thigh. He said that he had my teeth imprints for a while after that.
They pulled us apart and I couldn’t get near him but I saw his bodyguard who pushed me so I spit right in his face. Anthony told me that I was so filled with rage that I picked up a fire extinguisher and threatened to hit Ant with it.
“Mike, you ain’t going to hit me with that,” he said to me. “I ain’t even worried because I love you, you love me. Put the fire extinguisher down and let’s get the fuck out of here,” he told me.
But first I had to preen in front of the stage where all the reporters were assembled. I put my arms in the air to show off my biceps and then I grabbed my crotch.
“Put him in a straitjacket,” someone yelled out.
“Put your mother in a straitjacket you punk-assed white boy. Come here and tell me that. I’ll fuck you in your ass you punk white boy,” I screamed.
“You faggot. You can’t touch me, you’re not man enough. I’ll eat your asshole alive, you bitch. Nobody in here can fuck with me. This is the ultimate man. Fuck you, you ho.”
Shelly Finkel was trying to restrain me, but I shrugged him off.
“Come and say it in my face. I’ll fuck you in your ass in front of everybody. Come on, you bitch, you scared coward. You are not man enough to fuck with me. You can’t last two minutes in my world, bitch. Look at you scared now, you ho. Scared like a little white pussy. Scared of the real man. I’ll fuck you until you love me, faggot!”
That was the audacity that Cus had instilled in me. But it was also me talking like my momma. She would curse just like that. I feel bad now about saying that to that writer. I was out of my mind coming down off my high.
After the press conference I went out to see my pigeons in Brooklyn with a friend of mine named Zip. He was really concerned.
“What the fuck are you doing, Mike? You’re going to blow all this fucking money,” he told me. “You’re up there acting like a nigga. They could arrest you.”
“What did I do? They attacked me first,” I said.
“Not Lewis. I heard you threaten somebody’s life. If that reporter gets scared, they can put charges on you, man. Are you fucking crazy? That’s almost a terrorist threat. You’re a scary motherfucker, Mike. You may not be to us, but to them you’re scary.”
Then we flew some birds and smoked some weed and I did some coke.
“You’re fucking up, Mike,” he told me again. “Why are you doing this shit? Why are you out here fucking with these pigeons? Go back and train, man. We should be out near a beach on a yacht. Just train and fight, Mike.”
On January twenty-second, the same day that I was in New York for the Lewis press conference, the Las Vegas Police Department said that they found evidence in the raid on my house supporting the woman’s claim that she was raped and held hostage. Now they could only wait to see if the D.A. would bring charges against me.
Meantime, Darrow Soll had gone to work. He got affidavits from all the people who had seen this woman in the house. He called up all the maids, the landscapers, the plant waterers, everybody who had seen her. They all testified that the young lady was more than pleased to be there, walking around the place of her own free will with nothing on but a T-shirt.
By then, the girl had recanted and she went to my friend Mack and told him that she had been pressured by both the police and her boyfriend to file charges. Her stepfather had also told Mack that she had lied.
I was at the barbershop one day when a black lady who worked for the FBI came in for some work on her eyebrows.
When she saw me, she said, “I’ve watched your work on tape and you look very good.”
It took me a second to realize that she was referring to my private sex tapes that the cops had confiscated from my house.
“Umm, mmm, mmm,” she said. “You are something else, boy.”
Thanks to Darrow, the whole thing was shut down. The D.A.’s office stood up to the cops and after seeing the so-called evidence the cops presented, they decided not to bring charges against me. Meanwhile, my name had been dragged through the mud again for no reason.
Because of the fracas at the Lewis press conference, the Nevada officials voted 4–1 to deny me a license to fight there. Why was everything my fault? At Lewis’s last press conference, during an interview segment for ESPN, he and Hasim Rahman had a knockdown brawl
on the air that was much worse than the little scuffle we had in New York. But now they had to find a new venue and the fight was postponed until June. Which gave me more time to get high.
In February, a state senator in Texas said that I should be arrested if I went back to Texas because I didn’t register as a sex offender when I trained in San Antonio in 2001.
It was bullshit; I had registered, but why let facts get in the way? When we announced that the fight would be held in Memphis, officials in both Tennessee and Mississippi announced that I had to register as a sex offender before the fight. Why was I such a pariah in my own country? Overseas, the people knew what time it was. Whenever I went abroad, especially in former Communist countries, I was treated like a hero.
I went to Hawaii for my training camp. That should give you some indication of how much I was motivated for this fight. The epicenter of some of the baddest weed in the world was there. I was smoking my brains out. Even the prospect of getting the belt back didn’t mean much to me by then. I just wasn’t focused at all.
I was obviously fucked up then, big-time. That’s why I was doing weed. And the residue of coke doesn’t leave your system right away, especially psychologically. All that Maui Wowie made for some interesting press conferences. In one of the most serene places in the world, I met with the press and started ranting about hypocrisy in society.
“I’m just like you. I enjoy the forbidden fruits in life too. I think its un-American not to go out with a woman, not to be with a beautiful woman, not to get my dick sucked … It’s just what I said before, everybody in this country is a big fucking liar. The media tells people … that this person did this and this person did that and then we find out that we’re just human and we find out that Michael Jordan cheats on his wife just like everybody else. We all cheat on our fucking wife in one way or another, either emotionally, physically, or sexually. There’s no one perfect. We’re always gonna do that. Jimmy Swaggart is lascivious, Tyson is lascivious, but we’re not criminally, at least I’m not, criminally lascivious. I may like to fornicate more than other people – it’s just who I am. I sacrificed so much of my life, can I at least get laid? I mean, I been robbed of most of my money, can I at least get head without the people wanting to harass me and wanting to throw me in jail?