Former world heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson has given his side of the story about his tumultuous and very public relationship with his ex-wife Robin Givens.
In his new, tell-all memoir, ‘Undisputed Truth’, Tyson writes that Givens and her mother had been ‘on the prowl for a big black celebrity for Robin,’ and Tyson, at the height of his fame in 1987, fit the bill.
Just 11 months after their first date, to which Givens arrived with her mother and publicist, the pair were married.
According to Tyson, their wedding was hastily arranged because Givens, then 24, had announced that she was pregnant. Her mother then took on the job of finding the pair a suitable mansion to settle into, at Tyson’s expense.
During a close friend’s funeral, Tyson received a phone call from his accountant, who told him Givens and her mother were in his office, demanding that he release $5 million so that they could purchase a New Jersey estate. Against his accountant’s advice, he gave the money, and another $10 million soon after, which he placed into a separate account for Givens and her mother.
It was at about this time, writes Tyson, that Givens told Tyson that she had miscarried their baby.
‘She was supposedly three months pregnant when we got married,’ he writes. ‘Now it was June and she hadn’t gained a pound, so the next thing I knew she was in bed and claimed she had miscarried our baby.’
That’s a pretty serious allegation. Do you think there’s any truth to what Tyson is saying? Or is he embellishing for the sake of selling a few books?
