It’s safe to say that Mike Tyson and Steve O have led quite extraordinary lives. Following physical abuse (for very different reasons), both wound up in the media later in life, both with a popular podcast where they can share memories of their sometimes-hazy youth.
One of those outrageous tales involving Tyson in the case of Jackass actor Steve-O makes for compelling reading.
Although Steve-O has been drug-free for 15 years, he undoubtedly engaged in the party scene when his star was at its highest, which led to one night when he and Tyson did cocaine in a restroom.
“I’ve done f**king cocaine with Mike Tyson, dude,” he told GQ in 2016.
“We spent three hours locked in a bathroom together. There was this house party in the Hollywood Hills. And I remember I was distinctly not invited, but I showed up and rang the doorbell.
“Mike Tyson opened up the door. I said, ‘Hey, is it cool if I come in?’ And he said, ‘You got any coke?’ And I told him, ‘Yeah, dude, I got a bunch.’ And I did. I had like a whole eight ball in one pocket, half an eight ball in the other pocket.”
Tyson, a former world heavyweight champion, has made no secret of his recreational drug use, with the ex-boxer now regularly seen smoking marijuana on his aptly named Hotboxin’ Podcast.
It seems that in the case of the cocaine incident, Steve-O was very much the instigator by his own admission – leading to a surreal experience.
“Yeah, I was packing [cocaine],” he continued.
“So we locked ourselves in this bathroom. So there we are, and he asked me for a cigarette while I was chopping up a bunch of blow on the counter.
“He rolled it back and forth between his fingers and all the tobacco fell out, and he kept doing it until nothing was left except a tube of paper connected to the cylinder.
“And he turned it right side up and started scooping cocaine into it, like pure cocaine. Nothing but. And I’m fascinated. I’m thinking that can’t work.
“It boiled down to the most f**king gripping science-fair project ever. He filled it until it was f**king full as f**k. And he made it work, man. He sat there and smoked the whole deal.”
Before the pair went their separate ways, Tyson paid his new pal a compliment, saying: “The last thing he said to me was, ‘You know, Steve, everybody’s got you wrong. You’re actually really smart.’
“And the next time I spent real time with Mike Tyson, one-on-one conversing, was when we were locked up in the psychiatric ward together.”
The pair also famously met at the 2011 Comedy Central Roast of Charlie Sheen, with Steve-O firming a punch from the former champion boxer.