A lawyer for Melvin Townsend has demanded Mike Tyson pay up to the tune of nearly half a million dollars over a 2022 sky rage incident.
It’s taken a while, but the annoying plane pest who harassed Mike Tyson into an a— whupping has finally filed a civil lawsuit against the boxing legend.
The original incident went down in April 2022. Video of the situation showed a visibly intoxicated 37 year old Melvin Townsend standing over the back of Tyson’s seat talking non-stop nonsense at him. Another random passenger recorded the interaction from the other side of the plane and provided the footage to TMZ.
“This guy’s lit, man, he’s trying to rap with Tyson,” he said, laughing. “He don’t know how to act. Tyson’s looking out, man, this s—’s crazy as f—.”
Several more clips show Melvin acting like a doofus and continuing to speak at Tyson, who tried to ignore him. The next shot: Tyson turned around, firing punches into Melvin’s face. The final shot? A sad looking Melvin pouting after getting shut up.
The video could have been titled ‘F— Around, Find Out’ and submitted to the Oscars for Best Documentary Short. Instead it’ll probably be included in upcoming litigation.
No charges were pressed against Tyson over the incident, but a lawyer has now filed a demand for compensation from Tyson for $450,000. Note that is not a lawsuit, although the lawyer threatened to “continue to prepare Mr. Townsend’s case for the filing of a lawsuit” if Tyson didn’t pay up.
“I have received a shakedown letter related to some instigator’s harassment of Mike a year ago and the aftermath,” Tyson’s much better paid lawyer replied. “There will be no shakedown payment.”
That’s not to say “Iron Mike” doesn’t feel bad about what happened. In an interview on Jimmy Kimmel two months after the incident, he sounded apologetic.
“I’m usually good at these things,” Tyson said. “I guess it was just his number. I was wrong. That never should’ve happened. That’s me back at my primitive child stages. I shouldn’t have done that, but I was irritated, tired, high, pissed off, yeah. S— happens.”