Mike Tyson's Pets

Known for being one of the world’s greatest badasses, over-the-top purchases, and his newly found comedy career, Mike Tyson’s 3 Royal Bengal Tigers are Internationally famous. While still in Jail in 1992, Tyson bought the tigers for more than $100,000 and had to spend almost that feeding them for a year. He purchased them from a friend who sold him exotic cars. The car dealer said with a customer who owes him money, he was taking his exotic animals as payment. This included the first two or three Tigers he owned. I turned out Tyson lacked a proper license for owning the tigers and were sent to a refugee in Colorado to live out their days away from the spotlight. But Tyson did reunite with Kenya when she starred as the tiger in The Hangover (2009).

Once, a woman who trespassed onto his property and climbed into the tiger’s habitat. The tiger mauled her and Tyson said when he saw her hand, he gave her $250,000 in compensation. Because the woman jumped into the habitat, they couldn’t sue, but the boxer compensated her out of the goodness of his heart. He said, “when I saw what the tiger did to her hand, I had a lot of money back then, so I gave her $250,000 or whatever it was because she was just f***ed up.”

Tyson later admitted that it was wrong to own tigers, telling The Independent, “There’s no way you can domesticate these cats 100 percent. No way that’s going to happen. They’ll kill you by accident, especially when you’re playing rough with them, you’re punching them back. They get hyped up, hit you back and you’re dead. I’m just happy I educated myself. I was doing the wrong shit. I shouldn’t have had them in my house, believing they were domesticated. I was wrong.”

Mike Tyson is an enigma. He’s a known animal lover but doesn’t often go the traditional route of a dog or a cat. Or even a goldfish. Mike Tyson has either had white tigers or a flock of pigeons. Currently, Tyson has a collection of around 1,000 birds. He said he’s had pet pigeons his entire life, since he was 8 or 9 years old. Growing up in Brooklyn, he said the kids in his neighborhood flew pigeons, and the better your birds, the more respect you had.

Tyson’s first fight was over one of his pigeons. A kid stole one of his birds and ripped its head off. “He ripped the bird’s head off, hit me with the bird, threw the blood on me, smacked me around,” Tyson said. “So my friend said ‘Mike, fight him. Don’t be afraid, fight him.’ … I just fought, it’s not like I was sensational. I was just flailing away, and I guess I hit him more than he hit me, so I won I guess.” 

Mike Tyson has a dog! It took a global pandemic to get the world famous heavy weight champ to settle down from white tigers into a more mainstream pet, but he did it. Mike Tyson’s dog is named Mars and is a white doodle. Apparently, he’s tougher than a tiger — Tyson posted a side-by-side picture of him standing with Mars and him standing with a white tiger with the caption, “No stripes needed. Tougher than the tiger. Trust. #checksoverstripes”

Apparently, Mars has a corgi girlfriend because he likes em “short and thick.” Mike Tyson has nicknamed him the “Baddest Doodle on the Planet” and judging by his repertoire of ripped apart stuffies and videos boxing his dad, we can see why.