Why Did Mike Tyson Go to Prison? A Look at the Boxer’s 1992 Rape Conviction

Boxing legend Mike Tyson is scheduled to appear in his first sanctioned fight in decades on Friday.
The 58-year-old former heavyweight champion is taking on 27-year-old Jake Paul–a social media star turned boxer–in Texas, Tyson’s first professional fight since his retirement in 2005.
Tyson retired from boxing with a 50-6 record and 44 knockouts under his belt. Paul has been boxing professionally since 2020. Sources estimate that Tyson will make around $20 million for agreeing to Friday’s fight, per DraftKings Network. Paul is estimated to make $40 million.
The fight will be streamed by Netflix at 8 p.m. EST.
Tyson first rose to fame in the 1980’s, after winning his debut match against Hector Mercedes with a first-round knockout. By the time he turned 21, his record was 30-0, and he held the WBA and WBC heavyweight titles. In his 31st fight, Tyson defeated Tony Tucker for the IBF title and became the first heavyweight boxer to hold all three.
Less than a decade later, however, Tysons’ personal life began to shake. Per reporting from The Athletic, Tyson’s first wife, Robin Givens, filed for divorce in 1989, citing spousal abuse.
In 1992, 25-year-old Tyson was convicted of raping an 18-year-old Desiree Washington and was sentenced to six years in prison. At the time, Washington was a college student and the reigning Miss Black Rhode Island. She met Tyson at the Miss Black American pageant in Indianapolis in 1991.
Tyson was sentenced to six years in prison but was released in 1995, after only serving three years. He maintains that he is innocent, including writing in his 2013 autobiography, “I did not rape Desiree Washington.”
“She knows it, God knows it, and the consequences of her actions are something that she’s got to live with for the rest of her life,” Tyson wrote.
Tyson and Paul were originally scheduled to fight in July, although the match had to be postponed after Tyson suffered an ulcer flareup in May. In an interview for Netflix’s preview series for the fight, Countdown: Paul vs Tyson, Tyson said that the ulcer was over two inches long and caused him to lose 26 pounds.
“All my friends were calling me like I was dying,” Tyson said. “I asked the doctor if I was going to die, and she didn’t say ‘No.’ … You wouldn’t believe what I endured from my ulcer.”
When Tyson and Paul met for their official weigh-in on Thursday, Tyson struck his opponent in the face. It’s unclear what set off Tyson, but Paul has said in multiple interviews leading up to Friday that he plans to knock his opponent out.
During an episode of Netflix’s countdown series, Tyson said, “There’s a fundamental difference between me and Jake. He is a manufactured killer. Television and papers made him a killer. I am a natural-born killer.”