It’s pretty common for celebrities to come from poverty backgrounds. The fact that someone has come a long way often means that they’ve endured quite a lot to arrive there, as with Mike Tyson—the legendary boxer often referred to as the scariest man on earth.
Mike Tyson’s mother, Lorna Smith Tyson, died when he was only 16 years old, and even before that, her relationship wasn’t so strong with her son.
Here’s everything we know about the mother of one of the greatest boxers on earth.
Lorna Smith Tyson’s Biography
Unfortunately, only a little is known about Lorna’s life since she died long before her son became famous. Her birth date isn’t disclosed, but she was born in 1927 in Charlottesville, Virginia.
She was supposedly married to Purcell Tyson, a Jamaican cab driver listed as Mike Tyson’s real father.
However, Mike mentioned before that he didn’t know Purcell and was rather raised by another man called Jimmy Kirkpatrick. It turns out Purcell left the family when his son was only two years old, and that’s when their life began to take a dodgy road.
Weighed down by financial struggles, his mother took her children and moved to a dangerous part of Bedford, and that’s where Mike came to know Jimmy Kirkpatrick.
Years later, when Mike was roughly ten, Kirkpatrick left as well, which urged Lorna to move to Brownsville because of new financial constraints.
Lorna’s Relationship With Her Son
It’s common for celebrities to have dodgy relationships with their parents, and it looks like Mike Tyson isn’t an exception.
Mike mentioned in a couple of interviews that his relationship with his mother wasn’t something he’s proud of. He said she was never happy and proud of him as mothers should be, but she saw him as a wild, untamed kid she couldn’t control.
Apparently, the dangerous neighborhood they were living in has taken its toll on Mike. In his own words, he used to go home in clothes he didn’t pay for, and his mother struggled with raising him.
That, paired with the many nights he slept on an empty stomach because of poverty, and you wonder how he made it to the world’s top list.
A couple of years ago, Mike posted a photo of his mother on Instagram and mentioned that he saw it for the first time on that day. The picture was of his mother in her 20s, around 1947, and he mentioned in his caption that he doesn’t really know anything about his mother except what his father had told him.
Lorna Smith Tyson’s Death
Lorna Smith Tyson died young, only 55 years old. She was diagnosed with cancer in a late stage in 1982 and she died during the same year—only a couple of years before her son became a boxing legend.
Back then, Mike was only 16 years old, which explains why he doesn’t know plenty about the woman that birthed him.
Years after her death, Mike exhumed his mother out of her coffin and into a new expensive one. When asked about it, he mentioned that he didn’t like the fact that she died in such a ragged coffin. He also said that he’d been a bad son to his mother, and the new coffin was a symbol of asking for forgiveness.
What Was Lorna Smith Tyson Like as a Mother?
Though Mike didn’t spend a long time with his mother because of her unfortunate early death, he had plenty to say about the woman who raised him alone.
In a podcast, Tyson mentioned that his mother was loving but aggressive as a natural result of her rough life. He said she used to drink heavily and have plenty of boyfriends around, and he even said that he’d rob those boyfriends when he could.
Despite that, he loved his mother immensely and said that he wouldn’t have become a boxer if not for her rough death. In a twisted way, her death made way for his legendary career.