Tyson's mother had three kids with Jimmy "Curlee" Kirckpatrick, Mike being the youngest, but Tyson wrote in "The Undisputed truth" that he was "barely in the picture." After being laid off from her job during a recession, Lorna struggled to keep a roof over her family's head but would do anything to survive. "We lived in condemned buildings, with no heat, no water, maybe some electricity," Tyson wrote. Despite their poverty, Tyson wrote that Lorna would rather beg than steal. Whenever she would have to pick him up at the precinct, she would "beat him" right there, which he called "traumatizing sh*t."
The boxer opened up about his dynamic with his mother, who died of cancer at age 55 when Tyson was only 16, in a February 2022 chat with host Shannon Sharpe of Club Shay Shay podcast. "I never saw my mother happy with me and proud of me for doing something. She only knew me as being a wild kid running the streets, coming home with new clothes that she knew I didn't pay for. I never got a chance to talk to her or know about her. Professionally, it has no effect, but it's crushing emotionally and personally," he said.
