With all eyes on celebrities in public, they are always expected to behave and act in a certain way, always ignoring the negative comments that might be thrown at them by people or paparazzi; however, former heavyweight boxer Mike Tyson went viral for losing his cool on an airplane on Wednesday 20 April when a ‘fan’ wouldn’t stop irritating.
But what really made Tyson reach his breaking point? Here’s a quick rundown of what happened.
On a JetBlue flight out of San Francisco, a fan that was later identified as Melvin Townsend III repeatedly tried to approach the boxer asking him for a photo along with many other questions. The 55-year-old fighter was initially friendly to the passenger and when things started escalating, he asked his fellow passenger to ‘chill out’ but his request fell on deaf ears.
While the video, which was recorded by Melvin’s friend, does not show the entire altercation, it does show Tyson getting up from his seat and repeatedly beating the man seated behind him, leaving him with substantial bruises on his forehead.
The two subjects were arrested at the airport and later released and the one who was beaten received treatment for non-life threatening injuries.
The real question here is: who’s the victim in this situation? On one side, Tyson is no stranger to violence as he was convicted of rape in 1992 and later on in 1997, he was disqualified from a fight for biting off part of his opponent’s ear. On the other side, CBS Sports, has revealed that the other passenger has a lengthy criminal history.
We’ll leave it to you to decide; is Tyson to be blamed for what he did or can his reaction be justified? Share your thoughts by tweeting us @itpliveme