Tyson VS Hulu: “Heads Will Roll Over This”

A few weeks ago we discovered that Mike Tyson already has his own television series and that this was his leading actor (Trevante Rhodes). However, a few days after hearing the news, Tyson has denounced that the platform of streaming Hulu has appropriated the story of his life in the new series ‘Mike’, which will be released on August 25. He has denounced it through his social networks, in a forceful and direct way, as if it were one of his classic boxing movements.

The former champion stated that he was not involved in the creation or development of this series and that he was not going to receive any financial return for it. “Hulu is the streaming version of a slave master” He sentenced harshly in the text of his Instagram post. And he continued: “Don’t let Hulu fool you. I don’t support your story of my life. This isn’t 1822, it’s 2022. They stole my life story and didn’t pay me. To Hulu execs I’m just a n**** to be sold at an auction house.” These statements were not reduced to an Instagram post, and Tyson continued his complaint through his Twitter profile. In this case he published: “Hulu stole the story from me. They are Goliath and I am David. Heads will roll for this.“

The boxer had already alleged the day before that the platform would have proposed offering “millions” to Dana White, president of the UFC, in exchange for promotion for the show. “He rejected it because it honors friendship and treats people with dignity.” he mentioned about the president.

In February 2021, when the series was first announced, Tyson already showed his concern. At that time he decided to bet on another project about his life, directed by Antoine Fuqua and starring Jamie Foxx, whose name had already sounded in 2015 to play the boxer in a biopic directed by Martin Scorsese.

This is not the first biographical project that has upset some of its protagonists in real life. In fact, the problem is that, many times, they are not involved in the development of the fiction.

One of the latest examples would be the recent series on Los Angeles Lakers: ‘Winning Time’, which revolved around the team’s golden age in the 1980s and was also criticized by several of the stars portrayed in fiction. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar assured that the characterizations “reeked of easy exploitation“. In turn, the legal team of jerry west demanded that the producers retract and apologize. HBO For his part, he defended the consistency and veracity of the facts portrayed, due to an extensive and detailed investigation of them.

Picking up the story of ‘Mike’, at the show’s introduction earlier this month at the “Television Critics Association” press tour, executive producer Steve Rogers (‘I, Tonya’) with the showrunner Karin GistThey argued that they had no intention of portraying Tyson as a hero or a villain. “We just want to tell an unbiased story and let the public decide what they think or feel” Gist mentioned. “Challenging what people think they know about Mike, and hoping they leave the show with something else to think about.”

It remains to be seen Hulu’s response, which has not yet ruled on Tyson’s accusations, on this matter. What is clear is that the former heavyweight boxing champion seems firm in his battle. He thus remarked it in a later tweet: “Hulu’s model of stealing the rights to life from celebrities is outrageously greedy.”