Review: Undisputed Truth

[khamneithang]

Undisputed Truth by Mike Tyson is a hefty autobiography that might be the most soul baring book of its genre ever written. It is a brutally honest and a revealing memoir which chronicles his life's hits and misses, so painful at times but not without its fair share of humor. Its rawness is unparalleled for an autobiography. His brutality on people he measured dishonest with him is blunt. He picks the infamous promoter Don King for a word-bite calling him "a slimy reptilian m...." "When I think about all the horrific things that Don has done to me over the years I still feel like killing him," Tyson writes.

He reserves special treatment for his ex-wife Robin Givens, who he calls, "a manipulative shrew who could bring me to my knees." Tyson alleged Givens faked pregnancy as she was "on the prowl for a big Black celebrity." Tyson writes, "She was supposedly three months pregnant when we got married. Now it was June, and she hadn't gained a pound, so the next thing I knew she was in bed and claimed she had miscarried our baby." Writing about the mother-daughter duo, Tyson describes them as "two broke charlatans," "con artists" and "borderline prostitutes."

About his 1992 rape conviction, Tyson writes, "I did not rape Desiree Washington." He asks, "How do you rape someone when they come to your hotel room at two in the morning?" Though Tyson is known to have been a womanizer, his candid admission of it is a bit of a surprise. The many women in Tyson's life flow in and out of the pages like they did in his life. Even inside prison Tyson smuggled women into the facility and even had a months-long affair with his prison drug counselor who suddenly became available after Tyson had $10,000 sent to her home to fix her roof. "I was having so much sex that I was too tired to even go to the gym and work out," he writes. "I'd just stay in my cell all day."

Tyson recalls the incident involving Brad Pitt with his ex-wife in LA. There was a blond man in the passenger seat. It was Brad Pitt. "You had to see the look on his face," Tyson writes. "He looked like he was ready to receive his last rites." Pitt begged Tyson, "Dude, don't strike me, don't strike me."

Now 47 years old, he still hopes for a happy ending, but he knows it is going to be a difficult one. He ends, "I can't help anyone if I'm not well myself, and I desperately want to get well. I have a lot of pain and I just want to heal. And I'm going to do my best to do just that. One day at a time."

A memoir like this doesn't come around very often. Much of what we often see does not peel off the layers. Undisputed Truth is inside-out. Don't miss it!