Six days before TYSON premieres worldwide, the former undisputed heavyweight champion’s most unguarded account of his childhood is already in circulation. Tyson, now 60, uses the Netflix documentary to describe his mother Lorna’s violence toward him, her life as a sex worker in Brownsville, Brooklyn, and the collapse of their relationship before her death.
“My mother was a sex worker, a prostitute, whatever you call it,” Tyson says in the series, according to coverage of the preview footage.
Tyson recalls his mother’s boyfriend knocking her teeth out and scalding her with boiling water, and says his mother struck him with whatever was within reach.
“My mother was very violent. She hit me with anything: extension cord, a liquor bottle, anything.”
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By his early teens Tyson was already training in Cus D’Amato’s camp, and he says the confidence he brought home from boxing pushed his mother away.
“She didn’t like me no more after that. She thought something was wrong.”
‘She wasn’t gonna last long’
Lorna Smith Tyson died in 1982, when her son was 16 and before he had fought a single professional bout. In the series he describes a mother slipping away as he was starting out.
“She was doing bad. She wasn’t gonna last long. Cancer, cirrhosis of the liver,” Tyson says.
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The documentary follows him through the morning he learned she had died.
Four episodes, directed by Floyd Russ
TYSON is a four-part series directed by Floyd Russ, whose previous Netflix credit was Untold: Malice at the Palace. Netflix has set the global release for Tuesday, 13 October 2026, with all four episodes dropping at once.
The series combines new sit-down interviews with Tyson and archival footage, tracing his path from a petty-crime childhood in Brooklyn to becoming the youngest heavyweight world champion in 1986 at age 20, through prison, bankruptcy and the public collapses that followed.
Tyson framed the project as self-examination when it was announced.
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“Having an opportunity to share my story through the reflective lens of my growth and maturity in a multi-part documentary on Netflix will be a challenging journey, yet a very welcoming one.”
A stand-up special follows in November
Netflix is pairing the documentary with Mike Tyson: Return of the Mike, a stand-up special filmed at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Hollywood, Florida. It premieres on 3 November 2026, directed by Kiki Tyson, and is Tyson’s first stand-up outing since Undisputed Truth in 2013.
TYSON drops on Netflix on Tuesday, 13 October.
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