Mike Tyson Says He Was Sexually Abused as a Child

If you heard that Mike Tyson was visiting Opie and Jim Norton, you’d expect some kind of debauched conversation to take place that was suitable only for a satellite radio audience. Instead, Tyson opened up about his past in a candid and heartfelt way, discussing how an incident from his youth may have shaped him as a man going forward, even if he doesn’t exactly know how.

In his interview, seen below, Tyson discussed how he was snatched up at seven years old by an older man who ‘bullied me, sexually abused me and stuff … snatched me off the street. I was a little kid. Never seen him again.’

One of the saddest parts is toward the end where Tyson claims he doesn’t know how the incident even affected or shaped his youth, and that going back down to examine those times can be a hard, lonely process.

Tyson lived in poverty as a child and never reported this incident, preferring instead to live with it on his own. Given the roller coaster ride that has been Mike Tyson since the early 1990s, it seems the effects of his abuse are incalculable. At least now, years and years removed from this harrowing time, the former heavyweight champion can look back with honesty and perhaps begin to understand how this may have shaped him.

This article originally appeared on SI.com