Mike Tyson Felt He Wasted His Life Before He Hit the Age of 44
Mike Tyson amassed a lot of wealth and success during his legendary boxing career. Despite his accomplishments, however, Tyson didn’t feel like he was truly living until later on in life.
Why Mike Tyson felt like his whole life was a waste
At the height of Tyson’s career, he was worth $400 million. But he’s asserted that he didn’t have the maturity required to manage his wealth at the time. This eventually led to Tyson filing for bankruptcy, and being $60 million in debt.
The sports star may not be as wealthy as he once was, but he considered himself to be in a much better place. So much so that when he reflected on his life, he felt he only truly hit his stride in his 40s.
“The first stage of my life was just a whole bunch of selfishness. Just a whole bunch of gifts to myself and people who didn’t necessarily deserve it. Now I’m 44, and I realise that my whole life is just a f**king waste. ‘Greatest man on the planet’? I wasn’t half the man I thought I was,” Tyson once told Details (via Contact Music).
Tyson felt a more fulfilling way to spend his life was to make amends for the mistakes he believed he committed in his youth.
“So if there’s a big plan now, it’s just to give – it’s selflessness, caring for the people who deserve it. Because I think I’m a pig. I have this uncanny ability to look at myself in the mirror and say, ‘This is a pig. You are a f***ing piece of s**t,” he said.
Mike Tyson called the money he made ‘paper blood’
Tyson asserted that he didn’t miss much about his past life, including the money he used to make. Over the years, Tyson made the transition over to the world of entertainment. He’s appeared in a few movies and television shows. Currently, he’s the host of a popular podcast Hotboxin With Mike Tyson, where he interviews several celebrities. He acknowledged that he wouldn’t be in his current position without his background as a fighter. But he enjoyed his current occupations much more.
“Because when you really think about it at the height of my career I’m making 30-40 million a fight, doing what I want, anybody I want to see or meet, I see him on television, see them and like them, I make a phone call, meet anybody, do what I want to do,” Tyson once told Euro News, “But I didn’t have any peace. You know, I didn’t have peace. Now I’m not even at the height of my career, I don’t make a tenth of the money that I made then, and I have cartoons, I have shows, I could never have accomplished this when I was fighting. I would never have gotten along with the producer, I would’ve been arrogant. You learn humbleness when you get older in life. You learn that if you don’t become in humble in this world, the world will thrust humbleness upon you.”
In his younger years, he may have considered himself arrogant, but he felt a large part of that arrogance came from his enormous wealth. Tyson believed many might’ve had the same reaction to earning so much so young in such short time.
“It just comes down to, I don’t know, what people really are. And money is like paper blood to people. So there’s always going to be corruption,” he said.
