It was March 26, 1992. Six weeks earlier he had been convicted of raping 18 year old beauty pageant contestant Desiree Washington. At 25 he was facing sixty years in jail, but even in his 'moment of doom' he was 'an arrogant prick.'
Now, in his explosive autobiography, Mike Tyson: Undisputed Truth,published today, he has revealed that he spent the weeks leading up to that sentencing, traveling round the country 'romancing' his various girlfriends.
And where legal measures had let him down he had turned to 'divine intervention,' to bring him a light sentence.
He visited a, 'hoodoo woman' who said she would cast a spell to keep him out of jail if he put five hundred dollar bills in a jar, urinated in it and kept it under his bed for three days.
He sought out a voodoo priest who turned out to be a fraud, 'I knew that guy had nothing,' he recalls.
And he followed the instructions of a Santeria priest – going to the courthouse one night with a pigeon and an egg which he dropped on the ground as the bird was release and he yelled. 'We're free!'
He almost believed it would work. Because he felt invincible. 'In my mind,' he says, 'I had no peers. I was the youngest heavyweight champion in the history of boxing. I was a titan, the reincarnation of Alexander the Great.'
He was sentenced to six years and served three.
Highs and lows: Tyson recounts how he found his first wife Robin Givens with a 'gourded' young Brad Pitt who he mistook for a girl at first. He also talks about his various spells under lock and key in prison
He claims she started drinking heavily, never found another job and often slept with men she didn't want to just to keep a roof over her family's head. 'That's just the way it was,' he says.
As a seven year old, small and nimble he began a career of petty crime – clambering in windows of houses through which older boys were too large to fit to steal whatever he could get his hands on.
It was 'like Oliver Twist.'
The one true pleasure he found during that time was flying pigeons. Introduced to it up on a Brooklyn rooftop by older boys he was hooked from the start. 'It was like racing horses,' he recalls. 'Once it is in your blood you never stop.'
To this day, wherever he lives, Tyson has a coop for his birds.'In my mind, I had no peers. I was the youngest heavyweight champion in the history of boxing. I was a titan, the reincarnation of Alexander the Great'
His early boyhood took on a relentless rhythm of crime sprees, being hauled in by police only to be taken home and brutally beaten by his despairing mother.
By the time he was 12 he was a 'zonked out zombie' on Thorazine and a regular attendee of reformatory school, or 'special-ed crazy school.' There are not many light spots in the childhood that Tyson recalls. But one that stands out happened during a stint in the Reformatory school of Sporford.
He recalls: 'We watched a movie called "The Greatest" about Muhammad Ali. When it was over…we were shocked when Ali himself walked out on that stage, ' he says. 'I thought, I want to be that guy.'
He didn't want to be a boxer. He wanted to be great.
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