THIS DAY IN HISTORY:
JANUARY 12, 1989
Boxer Mike Tyson turned up in Vancouver 24 years ago for a visit with his estranged wife Robin Givens, but he wasn’t too happy when the local media discovered it. The boxer grabbed at the cameras of Vancouver Sun photographer Mark Van Manen and BCTV cameraman Mike Timbrell, causing $ 300 in damage to Van Manen’s camera and scratching Timbrell’s hand when Tyson tore the viewfinder off Timbrell’s $ 70,000 television camera. Tyson had called Givens “the slime of slime” after she claimed his behaviour made their married life “torture ... pure hell.” Givens then launched a $ 125- million libel suit against the 22- year- old heavyweight champion. But all went smoothly when Tyson visited Givens on the set of the TV movie The Penthouse, which was shooting in the Royal Suite on the 14th floor of the Hotel Vancouver. In the movie, Givens played a young woman held hostage by a crazy ex- boyfriend. The movie’s director, David Greene, called the media reception given Tyson and Givens “disgusting.” He said Tyson was “a nice guy,” joking “as long as he doesn’t hit me.” New York boxing fixture Al Braverman told Sun reporter Doug Ward that Tyson came to Vancouver because he heard the trill of the “lovebird whistle.” “It ( the lovebird whistle) flashed down from Miss Givens to Mike Tyson and he couldn’t resist going to see Givens,” said Braverman. “That’s his wife ... he wanted to see her and he went.” Givens divorced Tyson on Valentine’s Day, 1989, after a year of marriage. Years later, Tyson told an interviewer he caught his wife in bed with Brad Pitt on the day of their divorce. “I was going to my lawyer’s office to divorce her that day but I wanted to sneak in a quickie,” Tyson said. “This particular day, someone beat me to the punch. I guess Brad got there earlier than I did. I was mad as hell. You should’ve saw his face when he saw me.”