A little over a month ago Floyd Mayweather was the most popular athlete in the world. His fight against Conor McGregor brought in over $1 billion in revenue, and more than 3 million people watched it illegally. Mayweather earned well over $300 million from his last fight, finished off his career without a single defeat, and is well on his way to becoming one of the most legendary boxers of all time, especially after receiving a spot in the Southern Nevada Sports Hall of Fame this year.
But does Mayweather really deserve all the love and status he has received?
A few days ago I stumbled across a leaked section of a recent radio interview "Hollywood Unlocked" had done with Mayweather. Mayweather touched on many different, and often sensitive, topics, such as his past feuds with T.I and 50 Cent, Lil Wayne’s health, and, most importantly, his friendship with Donald Trump. In the interview, Mayweather confirmed he and Trump are friends and that he was discontent with the amount of backlash Trump has been receiving since his campaign for president, as he is heard saying “we judge people that we really don’t know.”
He then reveals his belief that the media and the American populace have been treating Trump unfairly. He is heard saying that everyone once loved Donald Trump and that people only started calling him a racist when he started running for office. Mayweather’s most controversial comment on Trump, however, was when he called him a “real man” for his comments to Billy Bush in 2004 about sexually assaulting women. And, yes, Mayweather also labels that as merely “locker room talk.”
But the controversy behind Floyd Mayweather lies not only in his words but also in his actions. His demonstrations of condoning violence against women do not just appear in his interview with "Hollywood Unlocked," but go back all the way to 2002 when he was first accused of domestic violence, which would, later on, happen again six times. Of these seven total cases he pleaded guilty to two of them and was convicted in another one, and the details of some of these cases are horrifying. His ex-girlfriend and the mother of his oldest daughter, Melissa Brim, claimed that Mayweather on one instance “swung open a car door, hitting her jaw, pushed her into the car and punched her several times in the face and body.”
Another one of his ex-girlfriends, Josie Harris, accused Mayweather of domestic violence in 2010. She claimed that she came home at 2:30 AM to find Mayweather talking to their two kids. A fight between them broke out and she called the police, but Mayweather left before they arrived. Later that night Harris woke up at 5:00 AM to find Mayweather reading her text messages, after which he hit her when she finally admitted she had a new boyfriend.
But despite these instances, justice has not caught up to Mayweather yet. He has only served in prison for 90 days after going through seven different domestic abuse cases, and it seems like none of these cases have impacted his fame or the amount of respect he receives as an athlete on a large scale at all. Meanwhile, if any average person would be accused of domestic violence, they would start losing respect and status almost immediately and be hated by their entire community. What exactly makes Mayweather immune from this kind of fate?
Apparently what Donald Trump infamously claimed back in 2004 seems to be true: “when you’re a star... you can do anything.” Mayweather’s enormous influence in both the boxing world and as a public figure has kept him safe from becoming a universally hated human being.
He and Trump aren’t so different in this sense, as both have many supporters that include one strong group of followers who stay loyal to their idols no matter what they say or do. Even after the countless controversial situations, both men have gone through, their core supporters have been unrelenting in standing behind them. This backbone of support allows Mayweather to get away with so many despicable acts, as he will never stop being loved by his most intense fans.
The second reason why he’s able to get away with all of this is the reason why he received that backbone of support in the first place: his accolades in the boxing world. Despite his actions behind the scenes, no one can deny that Mayweather is a legendary boxer. He finished his career after never losing one of the 50 fights he’s been through as a professional boxer.
He has Hall of Fame status. He lives a wealthy lifestyle. He is all around an intimidating figure that seems to be worthy of respect. This earned him his biggest fans and had his other fans who knew about his history with domestic violence on the fence on whether to respect him or not because it was a case of “the positives outweighing the negatives.”
Therefore, I am saying this to those people who are hesitating about whether to respect Mayweather or not: have some respect for yourselves instead. Under no circumstances should you support the success of a perpetrator of domestic violence, and if you do, it means that you’re approving of the violence Mayweather’s victims have endured.
The most effective way to show that you will not stand for such crimes is by protesting the efforts of any who perform or condone domestic violence or harassment. This not only applies to celebrities in sports like Mayweather, but also to those in politics like Donald Trump, those in music like XXXTentacion and Famous Dex, and anyone else who is a public figure and condones such crimes in any way.
You cannot separate the person’s public life from their achievements. Someone who harasses and violates in their personal life should not be respected, let alone idolized, despite what they might have achieved in life. A true idol is instead someone who radiates both dignity and respect both in public and in their personal lives, because they are the people that make the world a more safe and friendly place.
