Mike Tyson 'snatched off street', 'molested as a child'

  • 25/07/2017
Mike Tyson 'snatched off street', 'molested as a child'
Photo credit: ESPN

Former heavyweight boxing world champion Mike Tyson has opened up on the sexual abuse he was the victim of as a child, speaking on the topic for the first time since revealing it three years ago.

The 51-year-old, who was convicted of sexual assault himself in 1991, alleges he was "snatched off the street" by an "old man" in Brooklyn, New York when he was young.

It's only the second time he's spoken about the assault, after opening up three years ago in a radio interview with Sirius XM's Opie Radio Show in 2014.

Talking to ESPN, Tyson spoke about what happened in vague terms before becoming uncomfortable and making moves to change the subject.

"I don't even feel like talking about it, but one day a guy grabbed me and tried to bring me into a building," he told interviewer Jeremy Schapp.

"I like to keep that where it was, in the past - but I was molested as a child."

The controversial sporting superstar said the experience "made me have to be tough for the world I lived in" - though admitted he "probably" felt shame after it happened.

Asked why he'd kept that information pent up for decades, and never went to the police about it, Tyson had a simple response.

"It was nobody's business to know. [The Public Broadcasting Service] don't talk about because to some people, they believe it's emasculating them," he said.

"I learned that it doesn't make you any less of a man because it happened."

Mike Tyson has been in the headlines for other reasons in recent times, weighing in on the Floyd Mayweather bout, saying opponent Conor McGregor will "get killed" on August 26.

Newshub.