Shaquille O’Neal has had some memorable guests on his Big Podcast, but probably the most extravagant of them all is legendary former boxer Mike Tyson.
In a recent conversation between the NBA legend and the boxing legend, one of the most eccentric topics of the boxer’s life came up, his coexistence with wild animals, including tigers, lions and even cougars.
During the talk, Tyson recalled a time when he was bitten by one of his lions, something that left both O’Neal and his co-host Adam Lefkoe in shock, they simply could not believe that something like that had happened to Mike Tyson in his own home.
Mike Tyson bought a mansion for his lions
Tyson has always been known for his love of animals, but in the 1990s he took that passion to an extreme level. He not only had Bengal tigers as pets, but even lived with them in his home.
When Shaq asked him if he had ever been bitten, Tyson replied matter-of-factly: “The lion bit me, not the tiger”.
The conversation took an even more unusual turn when Tyson explained how he solved the problems of coexistence between his pets. “I bought the house next door for them. The tigers didn’t like the lions in the house, so I left that house to them and the tigers stayed with me,” Tyson said
The answer, so unexpected, as well as its casual tone, as if he was talking about anything, provoked laughter among those present. Shaq, without losing his style, summed up the moment with a phrase that quickly went viral:
That’s what happens when you have too much damn money
A phrase that carries even more weight coming from a multi-millionaire athlete like O’Neal
How many tigers did Mike Tyson have?
Although today Tyson recognises that it was dangerous to live with wild animals, at the time he saw no problem in sharing his life with them. He even had up to three Bengal tigers and even slept with them.
Years later, the boxer himself admitted that it was a risky decision, noting that tigers are too unpredictable to live in a domestic environment.
This facet of Tyson was the subject of jokes in popular culture, such as his appearance in the movie The Hangover, where he played a version of himself alongside one of his tigers.
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