Mike Tyson is now a confirmed middleman in Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs’ bid for a presidential pardon.
Speaking on Andy Cohen Live on SiriusXM’s Radio Andy on 8 October 2026, the former heavyweight world champion said Combs had phoned him from prison with a request, and he had carried it out.
“I spoke with him once on the phone yes. He wanted me to give a letter to the president,” Tyson told Cohen.
Pressed on whether he actually went through with it, the boxer kept the answer short.
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“I did what he told me to do.”
A 110-year-old rule, in Tyson’s words
Tyson used the same interview to defend his friend, going after the law under which Combs was convicted.
“I’m friendly with Puff. I was surprised that they went through so many lengths to get him. They used a 110-year-old rule to get him,” Tyson said.
The rule is the Mann Act, the 1910 federal statute on transportation for prostitution that framed the entire case.
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Combs was sentenced on 3 October 2025 to 50 months in federal prison on two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution, fined $500,000 and ordered to serve five years of supervised release, according to NBC News. A jury had earlier acquitted him of the far more serious racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking charges. He is being held at FCI Fort Dix in New Jersey.
Trump has already said no
Tyson’s letter is landing with a president who has publicly rebuffed Combs.
In a Newsmax interview with host Rob Finnerty on 1 August 2025, Trump said Combs had asked him for a pardon in writing but suggested their fallout during the 2016 campaign had changed things.
“But when I ran for office, he was very hostile… We’re human beings,” Trump told Finnerty, agreeing a pardon was “more likely a no”.
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Combs remains at FCI Fort Dix, with a scheduled release date in March 2028.
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