Who is Rodney Tyson, Mike Tyson's brother?

Rodney Tyson is the brother of Mike Tyson who is regarded as one of the greatest heavyweight boxers of all time. He reigned as the undisputed world heavyweight champion from 1987 to 1990.

Mike Tyson found his passion in grappling and punching, while Rodney Tyson found his in the medical field. This stark contrast in professions highlights how different two siblings can be, even if they grew up in the same environment. Throughout his childhood, Tyson lived in and around neighborhoods with a high rate of crime.

Rodney Tyson is the brother of Mike Tyson

Mike Tyson is known for battering his opponents inside the ring, his brother Rodney Tyson is a surgeon who saves lives for a living. This is a stark contrast in professions, as Mike Tyson found his passion in grappling and punching, while Rodney Tyson found his in the medical field.

This stark contrast in professions highlights how different two siblings can be, even if they grew up in the same environment.

He was born into a Catholic family in 1961 in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, New York City. He has a younger brother named Mike Tyson and an older sister named Denise, who died of a heart attack at age 24 in February 1990.

Tyson's mother, born in Charlottesville, Virginia was described as a promiscuous woman who might have been a prostitute. Tyson's biological father is listed as "Purcell Tyson", a "humble cab driver" (who was from Jamaica) on his birth certificate but the man Tyson had known as his father was a pimp named, Jimmy Kirkpatrick.

Kirkpatrick was from Grier Town, North Carolina, where he was one of the neighborhood's top baseball players. Kirkpatrick married and had a son, Tyson's half-brother Jimmie Lee Kirkpatrick, who would help to integrate Charlotte high school football in 1965.

In 1959, Jimmy Kirkpatrick left his family and moved to Brooklyn, where he met Tyson's mother, Lorna Mae (Smith) Tyson. Kirkpatrick frequented pool halls, gambled and hung out on the streets. "My father was just a regular street guy caught up in the street world," Tyson said. Kirkpatrick abandoned the Tyson family around the time Mike was born, leaving Tyson's mother to care for the children on her own. In 1992, Kirkpatrick died.

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Rodney Tyson's childhood and early life

Rodney Tyson's family lived in Bedford-Stuyvesant until their financial burdens necessitated a move to Brownsville when Tyson was 10 years old. Tyson's mother died six years later. Tyson later said,

"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."