Mike Tyson Says Michael Jackson Once Snubbed Him Backstage, Then Won Him Over

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By Mockulus Editorial
October 10, 2026

Mike Tyson was the reigning heavyweight champion and one of the most famous people on Earth when, by his own account, Michael Jackson made him feel like a nobody. Tyson told the story on rapper T.I.’s ExpediTIously podcast in January 2020, and it ends with a surprising twist: the grudge he held for years turned into respect.

Tyson’s Version of the Backstage Meeting

According to Tyson, he went to a Michael Jackson concert with promoter Don King and was introduced backstage. “I think he was at a concert in Cleveland,” Tyson said, hedging on the location. He recalled that MJ greeted King but didn’t talk to him, so he walked over to introduce himself. Tyson said Michael Jackson treated him as if he were no one special. The boxer, who had been champion only a short time, said it hurt, and put it bluntly: “It broke my ego.”

He told T.I. that he held a grudge against Michael Jackson for years afterward. Tyson even wondered at the time whether Jackson had deliberately played him, before deciding it must have been a misunderstanding.

Where the Timeline Gets Fuzzy

TMZ’s coverage dated the encounter to 1986, but that doesn’t line up neatly with Michael Jackson’s schedule. His Bad World Tour didn’t begin until September 1987, and he hadn’t toured as a solo artist before then. Tyson also appeared unsure of specifics himself. Other outlets simply placed the meeting in “the 1980s,” and fans debating the story online have suggested he may have misremembered the date or the event. No source I found pins down the exact concert.

The Turnaround

By Tyson’s telling, the relationship changed later, when a mutual friend said Michael Jackson wanted to spend time with him. One account of the podcast names producer Rodney Jerkins as the person who made the introduction. Tyson said he swallowed his pride and went. What he found, he said, was not the fragile figure of the public image. “I thought he was a f—ing idiot until I met him that day,” he said. “I learned to respect him. I knew he was a player.”

Tyson described Jackson as sharp and socially skilled, someone who knew how to work a room, and said Michael Jackson even offered pointers on meeting women. That is Tyson’s characterization, and nothing in these reports corroborates it from Michael Jackson’s side.

Why the Story Endures

The anecdote works because it reverses the expected power dynamic: the most intimidating athlete in the world walking away deflated by a pop star’s indifference. But it’s one man’s recollection, told more than three decades later, with some details he wasn’t sure about. Michael Jackson, who died in 2009, never publicly addressed it.