Mike Tyson: My Ex-Girlfriend Ate My Pigeon

by David Onda

Just when you think you’ve heard it all from “Iron” Mike Tyson… well, you haven’t.

The former heavyweight boxing champion (turned one-man Broadway showman) appeared Thursday morning on the radio talk show “Boomer & Carton,” hosted by former NFL star Boomer Esiason and Craig Carton, when he revealed a shocking story about his beloved racing pigeons.

“I was dating this young lady and she said, ‘I don’t know why you’re flying those damn birds, you should be eating them,’” Tyson recalled in the interview, transcribed by CBS New York. “She happened to grab one and – and she cooked one and proceeded to eat it. And I just couldn’t.”

“It just wasn’t the right thing to do,” he concluded.

Tyson’s love for pigeons is well documented. The 46-year-old boxer once claimed he had his first fight at age 11 when a bully ripped the head off his pet pigeon. Decades later, he raised more than 350 of the birds at his former home in Paradise Valley, Arizona. Animal Planet also documented Tyson’s foray into the world of pigeon racing in the 2011 reality TV series “Taking on Tyson.”

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Tyson said he started racing pigeons as a way to make cash after his boxing career came to an end, but claimed his passion grew as he began to realize the similarities between the birds and fighters.

“There are people bragging about this bird like he’s a world champion fighter,” Tyson told the mag. “And to be honest with you, some of these birds are world champions.”

Needless to say, Tyson’s relationship with the woman who allegedly “boiled” his bird didn’t last long.

“That’s why she’s not my woman anymore,” he told Boomer and Carton. “It wasn’t cool. It was her house and we were living off of her dime, so she could do it.”

Tyson is currently touring the country with his one-man show, “Mike Tyson: Undisputed Truth.”