Mike Tyson knows a thing or two about negative publicity. The former heavyweight champ was accused of assaulting his ex-wife Robin Givens during their marriage, bit off fellow boxer Evander Holyfield’s ear during a fight in 1997, got into numerous altercations at nightclubs and other venues, and most notoriously, was convicted of sexually assaulting a beauty contestant in 1991. But the 47-year old has mellowed considerably in the years since, and Tyson offered some words of wisdom to controversial R&B star Chris Brown.
“Listen, I like and admire that little guy, but what he really needs to understand is that eventually if you keep doing that stuff, man, people will turn on you,” Tyson said during an interview with 95.5 PLJ Morning Show this week. “The press will make the whole people turn on you. And make you bad. He’s selling out arenas now, and I know he’s thinking, ‘Never me’ cause that’s what I said, one of the greatest fighters God ever created, ‘never me.’ But they couldn’t even book me, cause nobody wanted to have anything to do with me. Not cause I didn’t sell things, they just didn’t want that stigma. Have a Mike Tyson fight and some people might get killed, the casinos might get robbed, and it’s just the stuff that came with you.”
“I’m just worried about him because he’s really a sweet kid, he’s probably just going through some overbearing pressures,” Tyson explained. “If he keeps getting these violent cases–he’s arrested for this violent assault–they’re going to put him somewhere where all they do is assault people. He gotta get it together. I can’t even believe it because I’ve got it together. I’m trying to work on getting it together. Who the hell is this guy? [laughs]”
“This is what I know: Chris should know this, if you’re not humble in this world, this world will thrust humbleness upon you,” said Tyson. “That’s just going to happen. I don’t think nobody was crazier than me. I jump on your car, you beep your horn, I jump on the car, kick the windshield out, pull you out, all that stuff. Now I’m ‘Yes sir, no ‘ma’am, yes ‘ma’am.’”
Tyson spoke about Brown’s issues back in 2009, when the singer was in the midst of a huge backlash facing his domestic assault of his then-girlfriend, pop star Rihanna.
“My personal opinion about that is, he’s just a baby […] He’s just a little baby that don’t know how to handle his emotions when it comes to a woman,” Tyson told MTV back then. “And he probably hears this and thinks, ‘I know how to handle my emotions’; we all think we do. But the fact [is], you look at this person and you might be crazy in love, but we don’t know how to handle those feelings.”
Brown was arrested after a fight in Washington, D.C.–the latest in a string of incidents that have tarnished his reputation even after his career recovered from the backlash following the Rihanna beating. He announced yesterday that he would be entering rehab to gain “insight” into his behavioral issues.
