Byron Nelson
Boxing legend Mike Tyson continued to denounce the decision of Hulu to go ahead with a documentary series about his life in an Instagram post on Saturday.
“Don’t let Hulu fool you. I don’t support their story about my life,” Tyson wrote on Instagram. “It’s not 1822. It’s 2022. They stole my life story and didn’t pay me. To Hulu executives I’m just a [N****] they can sell on the auction block.”
Captioning the post with, “Hulu is the streaming version of the slave master. They stole my story and didn’t pay me.”
Tyson then took to Twitter to say, “Hulu stole my story. They’re Goliath, and I’m David. Heads will roll for this.”
Tyson stated ET’s Philiana Ng on Thursday after the series’ executive producer, Steven Rogers, said the boxer could not be involved in the project due to rights issues.
“[That’s] a flat out lie. My life rights option expired years ago. Hulu nor any of their supercilious team ever tried to engage in any negotiations with this Black man. In their eyes I am still just a n—– on the auction block ready to be sold for their profit without any regard for my worth or my family.
“They say this story is an exploration of a Black man. It’s more like an exploitation of a Black man. Hulu thinks their tracks are covered by hiring Black sacrificial lambs to play the part as frontmen for their backdoor robbery is appalling. I will always remember this blatant disregard of my dignity.”
Hulu announced in June that he would release the show, titled “MIKE,” featuring Trevante Rhodes as Tyson on August. 25. It spoke of the eight episodes program, according to Kimberly Roots of TV Line.
“explores the tumultuous ups and downs of Tyson’s boxing career and personal life—from being a beloved global athlete to a pariah and back again.”
Per ET, Rogers and fellow executive producer, Karin Gist said they wanted to tell Tyson’s story from a broad range of perspectives.
“For me, as a writer, as a storyteller, I don’t really like to be reliant on just one source,” Rogers said. “I really like to do the research and get all these different opinions and then put a story around all of that. I don’t like to be beholden to just one person.”
Gist added: “We really wanted to make sure we were as broad as possible in the research and the dramatization of the events of his life and we could make sure we were opening the doors to other conversations to be had around those things as well.”
Though Tyson disapproves of making the Hulu version of his life story, the former world champion did announce last March that his own “authorized story” called “Tyson.” was in the works, and Jamie Foxx would be starring as Mike Tyson in the Bio-pic. Foxx and filmmaker Martin Scorsese will also be tapped as producers.
Per Peter White of Deadline, Tyson is listed as an executive producer.
