When Mike Tyson looks back on his friendship with Tupac Shakur, he thinks about the rapper’s big heart, explosive anger — and the one regret he has about their relationship.
“He always wanted me to smoke weed with him, and I never did it, and I wish I did,” Tyson said in a recent phone interview.
Tyson said he declined because he was a closet smoker and didn’t want it to get out that he smoked the drug. Now, when he looks back on the lost opportunity, he says: “That’s my biggest regret.” Tyson’s friendship with Shakur is the subject of a new documentary, “One Night in Vegas: Tyson & Tupac,” which airs Tuesday on ESPN (8 p.m. EDT).
The 25-year-old rapper was shot after a Tyson fight in Las Vegas on Sept. 7, 1996; he died six days later.
“He didn’t last long, but the time he did last, every minute, every tenth of a moment was explosive,” Tyson said.
The documentary chronicles their relationship, which Tyson said took hold when he was imprisoned in 1992 for rape.
“Every day, he would call me or get a chance to call me or send a message,” said Tyson. “He would get word to me in prison.” By the time Tyson was released in 1995, Shakur would be jailed for sex abuse; he was released on bond later that year. When he got out of prison, Tyson and Shakur’s friendship deepened. Both found it difficult to find people who truly cared for them, Tyson said.
“Our problem was we always had to worry about someone betraying us, our closest friends,” Tyson said.
Friendship was so important to Shakur that he criticized Tyson when he selected a song from rapper Redman as his intro music at a fight.
“He said, ‘Don’t you ever play those (expletive) songs again, they don’t give a (expletive) about you,”‘ Tyson recalled. “When he said that, it pierced my soul. … I felt like I did something wrong.” After that talk, Tyson decided Shakur’s raps would be his intro music for life.
It was partly because Tyson had chosen Shakur’s music as his fight music that Shakur went to Tyson’s fight in Las Vegas. He made a special rap for Tyson’s big night. After the fight, which Tyson won by knockout, Shakur was to join Tyson at a victory party. But he never made it.
“I felt extremely guilty because I felt if he didn’t come to this fight, that would have never have happened,” he said. “It’s just so crazy that we had talked every day for a week.” Tyson, 44, said the world never understood the real Shakur.
Angelina Jolie has condemned a Florida church’s threat to burn copies of the Muslim holy book to mark the ninth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.
The 35-year-old actress spoke out against the proposed burning during a trip to Pakistan to raise awareness about the floods that have devastated the largely Muslim country over the last six weeks.
She visited in her capacity as a goodwill ambassador for the U.N.’s refugee agency.
Jolie’s criticism echoed that of top U.S. officials, who have described the church’s plan as a disgraceful act and have even warned that it could endanger U.S. troops in Afghanistan and Americans worldwide.
“I have hardly the words that somebody would do that to somebody’s religious book,” Jolie told reporters in Islamabad after visiting refugees camps in northwestern Pakistan — one of the areas of the country hit hardest by the floods.
The Christian minister organizing the Quran burning, Pastor Terry Jones, has said he plans to go ahead in spite of concerns. He is part of the Dove World Outreach Center, a tiny, evangelical Christian church in Gainesville, Florida, with an anti-Islam philosophy.
The issue has not gotten much attention in Pakistan, where officials and residents have been trying to cope with the devastation caused by floods that first hit the country at the end of July following extremely heavy monsoon rains. The floodwaters have killed more than 1,700 people and have affected over 18 million others.
“I was shocked especially by how high the floodwaters went,” said Jolie, who wore a long dress and covered her hair with a black scarf in keeping with local Muslim custom. “In some of the people’s houses, it was nine feet (three meters) high.” U.N. officials have expressed hope that Jolie’s visit would help spark the fundraising campaign to help Pakistan, which has stalled in recent days. The U.N. issued an appeal for $460 million in emergency funds on Aug. 11, but only $294 million, or 64 percent, has been received so far even though it is one of the worst natural disasters in recent years.
“There’s lots of speculation about why this one has not gotten the attention it deserves,” Jolie said. “Even all of the wonderful coverage … is not getting the response that usually it’s able to get.”
A man convicted of stealing Kirsten Dunst‘s designer purse from a New York City hotel suite has been sentenced to four years in prison.
James Jimenez was convicted of burglary in June.
He was sentenced Tuesday.
A jury had found him guilty of stealing Dunst’s $2,000 designer purse. Actor Simon Pegg’s cell phone and other items also were taken from the chic hotel in 2007.
The actors were staying at the hotel while filming “How to Lose Friends & Alienate People.” Prosecutors had argued that Jimenez deserved seven years behind bars.
He denied any wrongdoing.
— The Associated Press
lsmith@denverpost.com
