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Mike Tyson: On Broadway directed by Spike Lee

Mike Tyson, the knockout machine boxing champion from the 1980s, also a convicted rapist, ear-biter and racing pigeon fancier, among other many things, is adding yet one more feat to his collection of incredible accomplishments and failures: starring in a Broadway show.

Directed by Spike Lee, Tyson will be the lone star of a Broadway show portraying his own life entitled “Mike Tyson: Undisputed Truth.” In plenty of style, wearing sleek suits and even sparring for the cameras, the tattooed-face former heavyweight champion and the film director announced the show Tyson opened in April in Las Vegas will be on Broadway this summer.

As for what happens in the show, Tyson said he is “a great actor” and described the self-portrayal spectacle at the press conference like this (from the Wall Street Journal):

“How this happened, and how I lost all this damn money, and how I had all these children and I go to prison and…you know. You know what happened, guys.” 

Lee did not see Tyson’s show in Vegas, according to the New York Times, but when a friend told him about it and after watching a video of it, he thought “We’ve got to take this thing to Broadway.”

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