Mike Tyson is opening up about some of the most difficult experiences from his childhood in his new Netflix documentary, including memories involving his mother’s past as a sex worker.
“My mother was a sex worker, a prostitute, whatever you call it,” Tyson says in the new docu-series (per The Mirror). “I seen that. I saw it first-hand. I was in the bed with her.”
Across the four-part series, Tyson recalls growing up in a home where violence was a regular part of life. He says his mother, Lorna, was physically abused by at least one partner before directing some of that violence toward him.
“I’ve seen a lot of vicious fighting… I remember my mother fighting with her boyfriend. I saw him beat her. He knocked her teeth out, then I saw him scald her with some boiling hot water. My mother was very violent. She hit me with anything, extension cord, a liquor bottle, anything.”
Directed by Floyd Russ, TYSON combines new interviews with archival footage to chronicle the boxer’s rise to fame and infamy. All four episodes are set to arrive globally on Tuesday (October 13).
Tyson described the project as “a challenging journey, yet a very welcoming one,” saying it tells his story “through the reflective lens of my growth and maturity.”
The series begins in 1970s and ’80s Brownsville, Brooklyn, where poverty and crime were part of everyday life. Tyson describes his father figure as “a pimp,” adding, “A pimp who was a trick. He was more of a trick than a pimp… My mother used him.”
He was first arrested at 12 and had accumulated more than 30 arrests by the time he was 13, first being sent to Spofford juvenile detention before later moving to the more difficult Tryon School for Boys. “That’s where all the bad kids go that kill people, that did bad crimes,” he says in the documentary. “Apex predators.”
It was at Tryon that a guard named Bobby Stewart told Tyson he would connect him with a boxing trainer if he improved his grades. That trainer turned out to be Cus D’Amato, who only needed two rounds of sparring to recognize the teenager’s potential as a future world heavyweight champion. D’Amato then invited Tyson to live and train in Catskill, New York. Lorna, whose permission was necessary, reluctantly agreed.
When Tyson returned home from camp speaking with the confidence of a champion, his mother became distant.
“She’d never heard no talk like this from me before… She said, ‘There’s always someone better.’ I said, ‘Yes, exactly, Ma. I’m the guy you’re talking about that’s always better than the other guy…’ She didn’t like me no more after that. She thought something was wrong. Didn’t understand where all this confidence, all this zest came from.”
Lorna died from cancer in 1982, the same year Tyson captured his second consecutive Junior Olympics heavyweight title. He was 16 at the time. “My mother never got to see me fight,” he says. “It was just hard, because I was talking to her and the next thing you know, boom, she’s dead.” D’Amato later became his legal guardian, although he never officially adopted Tyson.
Tyson now views those experiences as a source of motivation. “Everything that was quote-unquote ‘negative,’ turned out to be a positive for me,” he told People. “I’m very grateful for it all because it made me a better person.”
Netflix also has another Tyson project lined up following the docu-series: Mike Tyson: Return of the Mike, which was filmed at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Hollywood, Florida, and directed by Kiki Tyson. It premieres November 3.
