Mike Tyson used his latest sit-down with Piers Morgan to make something plain that he’s apparently been saying quietly for a while: he backed Donald Trump for president and he’s not shy about why.
Tyson was direct with Morgan on Piers Morgan Uncensored.
“I voted for him.”
He went further, describing his own role in getting Trump over the line.
“I ran the streets for him.”
The admission wasn’t a passing remark. Tyson built an entire argument around it, framing Trump as a man who has absorbed setbacks that would flatten most people and kept moving anyway.
“I’m very proud of him. He’s somebody that everybody should be proud of.”
What makes Tyson‘s defense notable is the history behind it. The two go back to the 1980s, when Tyson was climbing the heavyweight ranks and Trump was expanding his real estate holdings in New York and building his name in Atlantic City. Tyson competed at venues tied to Trump‘s properties, and the relationship held together over the following decades, outlasting both men’s very public ups and downs.
Tyson leaned on that history to make a broader point about Trump‘s resilience, reaching for a comparison that’s likely to raise eyebrows. He argued that the sheer weight of what Trump has endured mirrors struggles he associates with the Black experience.
“Listen, if you didn’t know who Donald Trump was and you didn’t know his name, you would think he’s Black.”
Tyson then walked through the list. There was the money. Trump‘s companies filed for bankruptcy six separate times, the most recent in 2009, years before he mounted the campaign that put him in the White House.
“When he went for President, he was bankrupt… He owed taxes, he owed so much money.”
Then there were the legal battles. In May 2023, a federal jury found Trump liable in a civil case brought by writer E. Jean Carroll, concluding he had SA-ed and defamed her. A later trial added to the damages, with a federal jury ordering Trump to pay Carroll $83.3 million on top of an earlier $5 million award. Tyson referenced the toll of that chapter without softening it, before turning to how Trump handled the pressure that followed.
“All this ( SA ) and all that stuff that he went through. People don’t normally go that well. They normally have a nervous breakdown. He handled it. And that’s why everyone has to respect him.”
Tyson extended that respect to Trump‘s courtroom troubles more broadly, separating personal feelings about the man from an assessment of his staying power.
“I don’t care if you hate his guts… you have to respect that. Just off the bat.”
The conversation also touched on the attempt on Trump‘s life during the 2024 campaign in Pennsylvania. Tyson pointed to Trump‘s composure in that moment as further proof of the same quality he’d been describing all along, calling him a tough President who doesn’t back down.
The bond between the two men has roots that go back to one of the lowest points in Tyson‘s career. When Tyson was convicted in Indiana in 1992, Trump spoke up for him publicly, telling NBC that Tyson had been treated unfairly in the case and casting doubt on the accuser’s version of events. Trump went further at the time, floating the idea that Tyson could sidestep prison by paying the accuser a large sum. Looking back on the conviction afterward, Trump offered a view that leaned heavily in Tyson‘s favor while still appearing to acknowledge the outcome.
“What has happened to him, the conviction, is already punitive.”
He added this of the accuser.
“(she) has had the satisfaction of humbling him and being vindicated.”
That history helps explain why Tyson‘s loyalty has proven durable, even as his own career has taken unpredictable turns. His hand injury in May put a planned exhibition with Floyd Mayweather Jr. on ice, a situation made messier by a separate legal dispute between promoter CSI Sports and Mayweather. Tyson‘s more recent outing in the ring, a bout against Jake Paul, ended in a unanimous decision for Paul, though the event still pulled in roughly 60 million households watching on Netflix, a reminder that Tyson‘s name continues to draw a crowd regardless of the result.
The Morgan interview was largely about drawing a straight line from his own experience of public scrutiny and hardship to Trump‘s, and insisting that the comparison holds up under examination, whether or not viewers are inclined to agree with him.
