PHOTO: ALFONSO BRESCIANI/HULU; JASON MERRITT/GETTY
Boxing legend Mike Tyson is calling out Hulu over their upcoming series about his life, Mike, which he says was developed without his approval.
In a series of strongly-worded social media posts over the weekend, the 56-year-old took aim at the streaming service and accused them of stealing his story.
“Don’t let Hulu fool you. I don’t support their story about my life,” Tyson, the youngest boxer ever to win a heavyweight title, wrote in an Instagram post. “They stole my life story and didn’t pay me.”
“To Hulu executives I’m just a [N-word] they can sell on the auction block,” he added.
Tyson also claimed that UFC president Dana White turned down an opportunity to promote the show, which stars Trevante Rhodes as the famed boxer.
“Hulu tried to desperately pay my brother @danawhite millions without offering me a dollar to promote their slave master take over story about my life,” he said in the post, which included a picture of him and White. “He turned it down because he honors friendship and treating people with dignity. I’ll never forget what he did for me just like I’ll never forget what Hulu stole from me.”
“Hulu’s model of stealing life rights of celebrities is egregiously greedy #headswillroll,” Tyson tweeted the next day.
Hulu declined to comment about Tyson’s posts when reached by PEOPLE on Monday afternoon. The Walt Disney Company owns a majority stake in the streaming platform.
During the Television Critics Awards last week, Mike showrunner Karen Gist said she wanted to tell an “unbiased story” about Tyson for the series. Viewers will “decide what they think or feel,” she said.
“Challenging what people think they know about Mike and hoping that they come away from the series with something else to think about,” she said. “Whether you like him or hate him, does the story make you question how complicit society has been? That was the intention, that was the North Star for the writers’ room as we were crafting stories.”
It is common for studios to make movies or TV shows without the approval of the people they are about. While discussing Hustlers, a 2019 film about a team of strippers inspired by real-life people, attorney John L. Geiger told IndieWire that most studios do not need a subject’s life rights before moving forward with a project.
“The general rule, nationwide, is that the first amendment is going to control for narrative fiction,” Geiger told the outlet, adding that writers are free to use the publicly known facts about a subject. “The concept of life rights is really something of a misnomer because no one owns the facts that make up the narrative of their life.”
Mike, an eight-episode series, is scheduled to premiere on Hulu on August 25 and is said to explore Tyson’s triumphs and failures, from his tumultuous personal life to his career in the ring and beyond.
Tyson has been the subject of several controversies throughout his life, including the infamous bite he took out of Evander Holyfield’s right ear in 1997. The move led to Tyson’s disqualification and temporary ban from the sport
After his 1992 conviction for raping 18-year-old Desiree Washington, Tyson served three years in jail. He maintained the encounter with Washington was consensual.
The former heavyweight champion also served another nine months in prison in 1999 after assaulting two motorists following a traffic accident. He was arrested again in 2009 after an altercation with a photographer at Los Angeles International Airport, although no charges were filed.
Mike, a limited series from Hulu, will premiere on August 25.
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