Mike Tyson a hit at Sundance

Mike Tyson didn’t pull any punches about his tumultuous life at the Sundance premiere of the documentary “Tyson.”“I never used to understand why people perceived me as such a monster, and then I saw the movie and it all made sense,” the heavyweight said at Bon Appetit’s Supper Club bash post-screening.But Tyson hasn’t completely changed his ways. For one thing, he’s still a control freak. “Mike told staffers he wasn’t going to come into the dining room until everyone was seated and ready for him,” said one insider.Due to more pressing events (like the inauguration, perhaps?), we had to leave the slopes in Park City, Utah, but Gatecrasher pal Neil Janowitz stuck around for the event. The ESPN the Magazine editor told us Tyson’s speech had a one-two punch.“Mike talked about how surreal the whole experience was and how the movie captured the ups and downs of his life,” Janowitz recalled. “When he hit rock bottom and things were awful, he never wanted to go through that again. But now, with the film coming out and being in Sundance, Mike says he’s the toast of the town again.”Tyson went on to say that “people are offering me a lot of p—y and a lot of money again.”When everyone in the room laughed uncomfortably, Tyson corrected the chucklers.“It’s not funny,” Tyson chided. “This stuff is detrimental. I had a hard time controlling it in the past.”The film, which sold at Sundance to Sony Pictures Classics, chronicles the boxer’s rise and fall. It begins with a young Tyson getting beaten up in the rough area of Bedford-Stuyvesant, where he grew up. There, Tyson got his first KO during a scuffle over ... pigeons.“Mike collected and raised them on his roof in Brooklyn,” Janowitz explained. “He had his first fight after an older kid killed one of his birds and threw it to the ground. After Mike punched his lights out, he saw that more people respected him, and he felt better.”While no one brought up Tyson’s winged friends, reporters did ask how he’s been passing the time lately.Said the former champ: “I’m trying to stay clean, trying to stay sober — and trying to stay out of trouble.” SOURCE OF THIS POST