Mike Tyson Fires Back at Photographer’s Grope Claim
(TheRedWire.com) – Award-winning photographer Lori Grinker worked with boxer Mike Tyson for years. In a recently-released pictorial book about the often-controversial pugilist, the photojournalist tells a story that sparked a response from the former boxer that nobody saw coming. She says he tried to touch her inappropriately. He says she had sex with him when he was a minor.
That Escalated Quickly
The tale Grinker tells isn’t particularly scandalous. She claimed Tyson, a convicted rapist, tried to grab her breast when he was just a teenager. As the story goes, he tried; she refused him. He got angry and threw her light meter in the snow. She noted he had a spoiled side as a young champion used to getting his way at the time. Grinker says they moved past it immediately and continued with their professional relationship.
Yet, when the Daily Mail reached out to Tyson reps for a comment, the response was more than surprising. The former heavyweight champ claimed the incident didn’t happen but said Grinker had a sexual relationship with him while he was still a minor. The allegations didn’t go over well with the photographer, who put the blame for the controversy squarely on the Daily Mail’s reporting.
How Did It Come to This?
Grinker replied to the outlet as well, first by calling Tyson’s claim “inaccurate.” She then went on to tell her side of the story, which sounds less like a jaded ex-lover and more like someone paying tribute to a man whose struggles she documented for the bulk of his career. In her comments, she had less than kind words for those who pointed Tyson’s reps to a small passage in her book she never intended as an attack.
She says the Mail’s writer removed context. She believes her book shows the metamorphosis from an immature kid to a tempered world champion, adding that her “homage to Mike Tyson speaks for itself.”
Their Relationship
Grinker was a college student when she met the 13-year-old rising star, Mike Tyson. She ended up spending a decade shooting him, ending up with more than enough material for her pictorial book. Before the accusations, the two had no controversy between them. The photographer stayed neutral through his legal troubles and even described him as “polite and funny” in her book. There’s no prior suggestion of a relationship or anything of the sort between them.
Tyson’s reps contend that the secretive affair happened when he was 17 and continued on and off for about 4 years. In a follow-up with the Daily Mail, they cleared up that while they initially said the boxer was a minor, 17 is over the age of consent in New York. Nobody is accusing Grinker of a crime.
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