a blot on the copybook
The Beckhams were going from strength to strength and when David signed a four-year contract with Real Madrid in July 2003, worth an estimated $40 million, it seemed the couple were set for life. To outsiders, the Beckhams wanted for nothing – plenty of money, three beautiful children, a wonderful home – but cracks started to appear in their idyllic facade. David was accused of sending text messages to a Malaysian-born model named Sarah Marbeck. The 29-year-old lived in Australia and claimed that she had had a two-year affair with the soccer star after meeting him in Singapore in July 2001. She claimed that after just four hours of meeting, the couple took part in a romantic embrace.
During the supposed affair, Victoria fell pregnant with the couple’s second son, Romeo, and was said to have been devastated when she found some rather lurid text messages between David and Sarah. When Sarah was approached by the News of the World, she claimed that the world’s most famous footballer had told her that he was in love with her.
I know I meant something to him because, on and off, we continued our relationship month after month after month. . . . When we made love David told me, ‘I know what we are doing is wrong but I can’t help it’. The first time he took me to bed he kissed me everywhere. I looked down and there was David Beckham kissing my breasts, David Beckham!
more cracks
More cracks appeared in April 2004 when David – now at the top of his game as England captain – was caught sending saucy text messages to his personal assistant, Rebecca Loos, the daughter of a Dutch diplomat. Loos claimed that not only had they had a sexual relationship for some time, but she also said that she felt she was falling in love with him. As his PA Loos was constantly with David and had recently helped him move from Manchester United to Real Madrid, an upheaval which hit the family hard.
Loos claimed that the constant separation from Victoria, who had refused to move to Madrid, had caused David to seek solace in the arms of another woman. She claimed that he needed someone to help him through a difficult time in his life and that he was trapped in a sexless marriage.
When David heard what Loos had said, he said that her claims were ‘ludicrous’, while Victoria reportedly called her a ‘lying cow’.
Both women were paid handsomely for their stories, Ms Loos an alleged $800,000 for her confession, making Beckham supporters more inclined to believe that David was the innocent victim of two money-grabbing women.
The accusations put the marriage under a lot of strain, and with Victoria abroad for much of the time, David was left to face the malicious rumours alone. To try and cement their relationship, David and Victoria decided to take a holiday and flew to Courchevel in France, followed by the paparazzi. They showed the world they were still very much in love, while others tried to say they were just doing it to quash the rumours.
move to la
In July 2007 David Beckham played his last game for Real Madrid, ending his contract with the club. He announced to the press that he had signed a five-year contract to play for the Los Angeles Galaxy to start on 1 July 2007 through to June 2012. Victoria was said to be elated with the prospect of living in LA and immediately started house-hunting for the perfect home. However, the foundations of the Beckham marriage were to be rocked once again when a model threatened to spill the beans about her affair with the soccer star in 1998.
The star of Love Island, Emma Ryan, claimed that she had had a six-week fling with David, although she said they had never actually slept together. She reportedly claimed that David wished to see her naked and exchanged several naughty text messages with the model.
It is alleged the relationship started in Manchester in August 1998, when David was a rising Manchester United star. Emma told the Daily Star, ‘He wanted to see me naked and couldn’t wait to play a game of strip Scrabble. Beckham’s people tried to make out it was just a brief fling. But the truth is, it was much, much more. Now I’m determined the whole world will know the truth. It was a love affair. We both had very deep feelings for each other.’
This latest revelation came at a time when it was believed the Beckhams were trying for their fourth child. Only time will tell whether the Beckham’s move to Los Angeles will cement their relationship. With the reunion of the Spice Girls in 2007 meaning that Victoria is away from home even more, who knows whether David will need to find a little TLC elsewhere.
Mike Tyson
At first glance the career of Michael Gerard Tyson, better known as ‘Mike’, reveals the man as one of boxing’s all-time greats. He was a former two-time US world heavyweight boxing champion, being the youngest man to ever win the heavyweight title. However, these impressive statistics cannot hide the real man behind those famous boxing gloves.
Tyson was born in to a working-class family in the notorious Brownsville section of Brooklyn. His father, Jimmy Kirkpatrick, deserted the family when Tyson was only two years old, leaving his mother, Lorna Smith Tyson, to raise her family the best way she could. Tyson was repeatedly ridiculed for his high-pitch voice and lisp as a young boy, which resulted in him using his fists in retaliation. His love of fighting saw him expelled from junior high and he spent the next few years in and out of detention centres for petty crime and violence. By the time Tyson was 13, he had been arrested 38 times.
Tyson’s natural ability in the boxing ring was first spotted by an ex-boxer by the name of Bobby Stewart. Stewart was also a counsellor at the juvenile detention centre where Tyson was under remand and, seeing the young boy’s potential and physical advantages, believed that boxing might be the way to calm the wild spirit raging within. He trained the young Tyson for several months and then introduced him to the legendary Cus D’Amato.
D’Amato immediately saw the boy’s potential and removed him from the reform school to start some serious training. D’Amato was a well-known boxing trainer whose protégés included Floyd Patterson and José Torres. Tyson looked up to D’Amato, who not only became his legal guardian but also his father substitute as well. As an amateur, Tyson became a formidable opponent and his rise to stardom was rapid. His professional debut was on 6 March 1985 in Albany, New York, when he defeated Hector Mercedes by knocking him out in the first round. Tyson went from strength to strength, winning 19 of his first 22 fights by knocking out his opponents, many of them in the first round. His winning streak attracted media attention, which resulted in him being hailed the next great heavyweight champion of the world.
However, the death of D’Amato in November 1985 at the pinnacle of Tyson’s career is thought to have set the young boxer on the road to ruin. Without this influence in his life, Tyson struggled to stay out of trouble although further fame and fortune were to come first.
When still only 20 years old, Tyson was given his first title fight against Trevor Berbick for the World Boxing Council (WBC) heavyweight championship. He took Berbick in the second round, making Tyson the youngest heavyweight to ever win the coveted title. From then on expectations were high, and Tyson embarked on an ambition to fight every single top heavyweight in the world.
problems outside the ring
Although there is no doubt that Tyson was a major success inside the boxing ring, his life away from the ropes was becoming turbulent. In 1987 Tyson was charged with assault, but managed to settle out of court. It was alleged that he hit a parking attendant when the man tried to intervene because Tyson attempted to kiss a woman employee. This was to be the first of many scandals to rock the life and career of the world famous boxer. The same year, Tyson beat James ‘Bonecrusher’ Smith and became the World Boxing Association (WBA) heavyweight champion.
On 8 February 1988 Tyson married the actress Robin Givens, but it wasn’t long before her family started to accuse Tyson of domestic violence. Robin and her family demanded access to Tyson’s fortune so that they could put a down-payment on a $3 million house in New Jersey. The relationship was stormy to say the least and, within a year, the marriage was over. Added to this Tyson sued his manager,
Bill Cayton, for breaking their contract and ended up by settling out of court.
In late 1988 Tyson fired his longtime trainer Kevin Rooney, but without his expertise Tyson’s skills slowly start to deteriorate, and instead of using the skill that brought him to stardom he went straight in for a knockout. This did nothing for Tyson’s reputation, which was further knocked when he broke his right hand in a street brawl with former opponent Mitch Green. In 1997 Green won a lawsuit over the incident and was awarded $45,000.
Tyson seemed to have lost his direction and was found unconscious after driving his car into a tree in the driveway of his former guardian and mentor, D’Amato. The newspapers had a field day, claiming that the boxer had lost his mind and that he had tried to commit suicide. Tyson’s wife didn’t help by going on television and claiming that her husband was a manic-depressive and that their marriage had been sheer hell, while Tyson sat meekly beside her without saying a word. That seemed to flip Tyson over the edge and the police had to be called out to the home he had shared with Robin, after he started to throw furniture out of the window and forcing his wife and her mother out of the property. After that incident his wife sued for divorce and Tyson became embroiled in a year of bitter legal wrangles. The divorce was finally granted in 1989 and Tyson had to face yet another assault charge and a speeding offence before Tyson’s professional life really took a turn for the worse.
In 1990 Tyson had to face a huge upset when he lost his world heavyweight title to James ‘Buster’ Douglas, and from there his life goes from bad to worse. Firstly, he was sued by a former aide to his ex- wife, Phyllis Polaner, for sexual assault and harassment. Later the same year he had to face a civil jury in New York, who found him guilty of committing battery against Sandra Miller, after he allegedly grabbed her, propositioned her and insulted her at a nightclub. She received minimal damages on the grounds that Tyson’s behaviour was not considered to be ‘outrageous’. Just three days later Tyson was sued by Lori Davies when it was alleged he tried to grab her buttocks while she was dancing at the same nightclub as Miller. Tyson was eventually fined $100.
In 1991, Tyson was in the news again when he admitted being the father of an eight-month-old girl born to Kimberly Scarborough. But all these minor scandals were nothing compared to the bombshell that was about to hit.
a spell in prison
In February 1992 Mike Tyson was facing a jury in Indianapolis after being charged with the rape of an 18-year-old beauty pageant contestant, Desiree Washington. Tyson walked into the courtroom, much the way a boxer would walk into the ring, and sat at the defence table for the majority of the 14-day trial. As the jury foreman read out the verdict, Tyson sat with his hands in his lap, his muscles visibly tensed and no expression on his face. Although his fight promoter, Don King, had not been present throughout the trial, he arrived to hear the verdict being read.
Miss Desiree, who had also been absent during most of the trial, sat in the front row of the gallery with her mother, and watched and listened in complete silence. She claimed to have met Tyson while she was taking part in the beauty pageant and that he had lured her back to his hotel room and forced her to have sex with him. The prosecutors had attempted to portray the accuser as a naive and star-struck woman who had been fooled by a man who used his celebrity status to influence her. Tyson’s team had desperately tried to convince the court that the young woman had known exactly what she was getting into when she agreed to go to his hotel room in the early hours of the morning on July 19. They added that Miss Desiree had had plenty of time to leave before Tyson started making sexual advances towards her. They claimed that when she realised she was being treated as a one-night stand, Miss Desiree wanted to get her revenge and decided to prosecute to cover up her humiliating experience.
Unfortunately Tyson’s defence lost its case and he was found guilty of rape and and other charges and given a six-year jail sentence. Tyson served three years of his sentence and allegedly studied philosophy and Islam during his time behind bars. He felt angry at the injustice he had received in the court and worried that his reputation as a ladies’ man had gone down the pan. When he was released in 1995, it appeared that Tyson had benefitted from his spell in prison as he seemed a much calmer person.
Tyson returned to fighting later that year with two comback bouts against Peter McNeely and Buster Mathis Jr, both of which he won with ease. Tyson’s management received criticism for giving him opponents that were so easy to defeat, and felt they were both unworthy components for Tyson’s return to the ring. Tyson regained his WBC title easily by defeating Frank Bruno in March 1996, knocking him out in the third round. He also won back the WBA belt by beating the champion Bruce Seldon in just one round in September 1996. It appeared the good guy was back and his fans loved him, but everything was about to change.
tyson fights holyfield
During Tyson’s spell in prison, Evander Holyfield lost his titles and had gone into semi-retirement. Tyson’s camp decided to lure Holyfield back into the ring on 9 November 1996. Holyfield, who was given virtually no chance of winning by the bookies, amazingly beat Tyson when the referee stopped the fight in the 11th round. The public demanded a rematch, believing that Tyson should have won the fight, but no one could have predicted the outcome of the much awaited fight.
The rematch was scheduled to take place on 28 June 1997 at the MGM Grand Arena in Las Vegas. The press were calling it ‘The Sound and the Fury’ and as the clash of the titans was about to start the excitement in the crowd reached fever pitch.
Tyson walked through the crowds wearing his usual black trunks and shoes without any socks. The fight started quite cautiously, but Tyson received a cut above his right eye as a result of a clash of heads and this seemed to change the complexity of the fight.
When the two men emerged from their corners at the beginning of the third round, Tyson was without his gumshield and was clearly frustrated and irritated. No one has noticed his missing gumshield, with the exception of Holyfield. Holyfield pointed towards Tyson’s mouth and then looked towards his trainer, and Tyson had to return to his corner. As soon as the gumshield was in place Tyson charged out of his corner, immediately catching Holyfield with a ferocious combination of punches. The crowd started to go mad chanting both their names.
Suddenly, with just 40 seconds left in the round, the fight took an ugly turn. Tyson managed to get Holyfield in a clinch, spat out his gumshield and then for no explicable reason bit a large chunk out of his opponent’s right ear.
The entire stadium gasped, unable to believe what they have just seen, as Tyson spat the piece of his opponent’s ear onto the floor. A bewildered Holyfield stood in the middle of the ring clutching the side of his head with blood pouring down his shoulder. The referee abruptly stopped the fight and Holyfield was taken to his corner for much needed medical attention. The referee turned to Tyson and said, ‘One more like that and you’re gone,’ and amazing the fight resumed. The crowd were going mad in a wild fury of emotion. Almost immediately the two fighters were in another close clinch and to everyone’s amazement Tyson found Holyfield’s left ear and bit that as well, ripping away an even larger piece.
Following the second incident all hell broke lose, with Tyson now in an uncontrollable rage taking a swing at a policeman who had stormed into the ring. As Tyson was led away from the ring, the whole place became a war zone with missiles and abuse being aimed at the boxer from all sides.
Holyfield had to undergo plastic surgery to repair his ear, while Tyson was immediately suspended and his purse withheld. This was just another phase in the crazy and uncontrolled life of the once extremely popular and successful boxer. The world of boxing now saw Mike Tyson as a volatile and dangerous character, and it took him another 18 months before he could convince the authorities to allow him to fight in the ring again.
more trouble
In August 1998 Tyson was back in trouble when two motorists claimed that he had assaulted them following a traffic accident
in Maryland. By February 1999 Tyson was back in jail, but this time it did nothing to stem his anger and instead he was placed in solitary confinement for 25 days after he threw a television across a room. Tyson was eventually released in May 1999 after serving less than a third of his initial one-year sentence.
Tyson’s comeback fight was yet another soap opera, as his bout with Orlin Norris had to be declared a ‘no-contest’ after Tyson knocked his opponent out after the bell. Tyson’s reputation, if not already in tatters, left him unable to find a fight in his home country and he sought contests abroad.
Tyson had three fights in the UK, after much controversy as to whether he should be allowed entry into the country. After several more fights, Tyson stunned the boxing world by admitting that he was ready to quit on 11 June 2005. He told the press that he ‘no longer had the fighting guts or the heart anymore’.
tyson faces cocaine charge
In December 2006 Mike Tyson brushed with the law once again when he was arrested and charged with driving under the influence of drugs and possession of cocaine. Tyson, now 41, was arrested in Scottsdale, Arizona, after he was seen to be driving erratically after leaving a nightclub. During a roadside search they found three bags of cocaine and he later admitted to having used marijuana that day as well as an anti-depressant. Tyson was sentenced to 24 hours in jail and ordered to do 360 hours of community service.
Infamous Scandals Page 29