Mike Tyson on Surviving Loss, Cocaine Addiction, Prison: ‘Everything Bad That Happened to Me, I’m Grateful For’

A new Netflix docuseries focuses on the former heavyweight champion’s highs and lows. He tells PEOPLE he wouldn’t be who he is today without his troubled past

Credit :Jason Mendez/Getty; Gregory Bojorquez/Getty

No other professional athlete has lived a wilder life than boxer Mike Tyson.

Still, the former heavyweight champion boxer says he’s confused why people are still so interested in his life story, which is being uncovered once more in an upcoming four-part docuseries on Netflix called TYSON, airing Oct. 13.

“I just don’t understand why they still want to know about me,” Tyson, now 60, tells PEOPLE with a laugh. “They’ve done so many documentaries about me already! But I guess I understand. This one is good. But a lot of things are just so uncomfortable to revisit.”

The series highlights all of the boxer’s highs and lows, including his rough childhood growing up in poverty and being arrested 38 times for theft by age 13, to becoming the heavyweight champion of the world and winning hundreds of millions of dollars in prize money (and losing it), and gaining worldwide fame for his antics outside of the ring as much as for his talents.

Mike Tyson poses during a portrait session in December 1985 in New York, New York.The Ring Magazine via Getty

It also showcases plenty of lows, like the deaths of his mother, his trainer, and four-year-old daughter, his battle with cocaine and alcohol addiction, his tumultuous marriage to Robin Givens, financial betrayals by past friends and managers, rape accusations and a two-year prison stint.

“The past is the past,” says Tyson, who is now celebrating 10 years free from alcohol and cocaine. “But our memories are imprisoned in our minds forever.”

One of those memories is, of course, the infamous Evander Holyfield “bite fight,” where, during their fight in 1997, Tyson bit into his opponent’s ear not once, but twice.

He says he doesn’t love talking about it. “This is the thing about it though,” he says. “A lot of people thought it was a good thing to do. They were like yeah, wasn’t that great? But I’m still embarrassed.’”

The first episode of the series dives into Tyson’s childhood and how, at 13, after taking a boxing class at the juvenile detention center he’d been sent to, his talents were discovered by boxing trainer Cus D’Amato, who had a gym in nearby Catskill, New York.

Tyson fell in love with the sport and became an excellent student, bringing up his reading to grade level within a month. D’Amato also became Tyson’s legal guardian, and let him live at his house with other talented boxers under his tutelage, and Tyson’s relationship with the trainer, who treated him like he was a son, changed everything.

“He gave me confidence. He gave me character. He made me believe in myself and what I could do,” Tyson says.

After having grown up with little money and even less self-esteem, he says, “To give a young boy confidence is a very important thing to do. It tells them that they’re good, they’re OK. I think everyone could relate to the importance of that.”

He adds, “Everything was always positive with Cus. He’d tell me when I was getting good. Even that I was getting handsome. All positive things. He also wanted me to be myself. If I tried to be anyone else, he’d call me a phony. He made me want to be a champion. Once I became once, that’s all I wanted to do. I didn’t want a life of crime anymore. I focused.”

Mike Tyson and Cus D’Amato.Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty; Seymour Wally/NY Daily News via Getty

D’Amato died in 1985 at age 77, and later in his career, when Tyson found himself being betrayed by friends, managers and promoters, who stole his money or never had his best interests at heart, he says it’s all because the one man he loved wasn’t there.

“Cus always protected me,” he says. “He would have protected me. But I wasn’t a human. I was a product. But that’s the conduct of a professional athlete. He can’t have feelings involved. It’s the mission that counts.”

Looking back at his wild ride — which included a turbulent year-long marriage to actress Robin Givens, and later, a rape accusation that Tyson always denied but did two years in prison for — he says he has no regrets about anything that happened in his past.

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“Everything that was quote-unquote ‘negative,’ turned out to be a positive for me,” says Tyson, who now relishes time with his family and hasn’t had alcohol or cocaine for ten years. (“I’m ‘California’ sober,’ ” he says, meaning he smokes marijuana.)

“I’m very grateful for it all because it made me a better person. Everything bad that happened to me, I’m grateful for.”

TYSON is streaming on Netflix beginning Oct. 13.