Years before making his return to the ring against a YouTube star, Mike Tyson almost got into it with boybander Ronan Keating.
The legendary world heavyweight champion was serving a suspension for biting off a chunk of Evander Holyfield’s ear in their ill-fated rematch. He had travelled to Monte Carlo and was, as Keating says ‘going through a Buddhist patch’.
However, he was almost driven into a further rage when Keating slapped him across the face after he had been removed by security for a drunken exchange. The story remains part of the pop star’s legend, while Tyson has never confirmed its validity.
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Ronan Keating slapped Mike Tyson in drunken airport incident
In 1998 Mike Tyson made an appearance in Monte Carlo at the World Music Awards to present a pair of prizes to Amir Diab and Savage Garden. Keating had just married his first wife Yvonne Connolly and stopped by the ceremony during his celebrations.
The singer, who rose to fame in Boyzone before breaking off for a solo career, claims that he was taken away by security after attempting to mock Tyson.
He had tried to tell the boxer that Steve Collins, at the time Ireland’s most famous boxer, would defeat the heavyweight great. But he accidentally told the fighter that he would lose to Irish revolutionary Michael Collins, who had been dead for over 75 years, instead.
Speaking to FHM magazine in 2004, Keating explained that: “I’d just got married in Vegas and we’d been drinking for two days. I saw Mike Tyson and I went over and said ‘Michael Collins would kill you’. I meant Steve Collins
“And with that I was dragged out by security, still shouting at him… So anyway, we’re flying home the next day and there’s Tyson asleep on a bench in the airport. I’m still p***ed so I walk over and smack him in the face and run.”
He later recalled the story during an appearance on Irish TV show Tubridy Tonight. Keating added in the less flattering detail that he immediately grabbed his boarding card and sprinted towards his gate before Tyson had even woken up.
“I legged it up the escalator with my boarding pass in hand going ‘open the gate’,” Keating joked, to the surprise of host Ryan Tubridy. “But he was still asleep, he was gonezo, he didn’t move.”
Mike Tyson was serving boxing ban during Ronan Keating slap incident
It’s lucky for Keating that he didn’t wake Tyson up, as it likely would not have ended well for him on the night. Just under a year prior, he had pulled his most unhinged stunt yet as he bit off a chunk of Evander Holyfield’s ear.
The pair were rematching after Holyfield had gotten the better of Tyson in their initial meeting with an eleventh round knockout. However, after what the challenger claimed to be incessant headbutting from the champion, he bit his rival’s ear twice in round three.
It led to referee Mills Lane stepping in and calling a disqualification win for Holyfield, who was visibly badly hurt by the ordeal. The pair have since made up, but there have been calls for an exhibition trilogy between them for years afterwards.