When Mike Tyson was at the top of his game, he was one of the world’s wealthiest and most well-known celebrities. His life has been filled with strange and contentious events. One such instance was when he tried to pet three tigers.
Tyson had named the cubs Kenya, Boris, and storm. Out of the three, Kenya was the closest to him and she stayed with him for over 16 years. He donated Boris and Storm to a wildlife sanctuary. Mike Tyson revealed what had happened to Kenya, during a 2019 Q&A session with GQ Sports. He said, “She stayed with me. I had her for probably sixteen years. She was a massive monster. You can’t imagine the size of her…She got too old, and I had to get rid of her. Her eyes and her hip got bad. And she ripped somebody’s arm off “
Tyson’s tiger attacked someone, which is why he was initially sued. However, the subsequent inquiry showed that the victim had attempted to play with the tiger and trespass on its territory. Failing to identify the trespasser Kenya assaulted the person. However, as restitution, Mike Tyson gave the victim $250,000.
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Mike Tyson brought Kenya through a mutual friend who used to trade exotic animals
It’s quite fascinating how Mike Tyson managed to land those Cubs. Mike explained how he got those cubs during his appearance on the Joe Rogan Experience. He revealed that during his time in prison during the early 90s when he came in contact with a mutual friend who was trading all these exotic animals.
Talking about the whole incident Mike said, “I said ‘You do?! Can you get me some tigers?’ The guy said ‘Imagine, how cool that would be?’ Because I had a bunch of fancy cars, ‘Imagine that man, you’d be in an Aston Martin or a Ferrari. You’d have a tiger right next to you, man. That’d be so awesome,”
Each tiger reportedly cost Mike Tyson more than $70,000, and he subsequently spent close to $200,000 annually on its feeding and other needs. He even paid $125,000 to a trainer to train them.
But when the ‘Tiger King’ Netflix documentary gained popularity, Mike Tyson said during an Instagram Live session that he might have acquired his tigers from the now-famous Joe Exotic and that he was aware it was wrong for him to keep wild creatures like tigers at his home.
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