Law & Order: SVU Moves Mike Tyson Episode Away from Rape Survivor Event
 

January 31, 2013 11:53 AM PST
http://pmctvline2.files.wordpress.co...yson.jpg?w=640 Mike Tyson


NBC has moved the airdate for a Law & Order: SVU episode guest-starring convicted rapist Mike Tyson up a week, to Feb. 6, lest it fall the day before One Billion Rising, a nationwide event protesting rape and other violence against women.

The casting of Tyson — who in 1992 was convicted of raping an 18-year-old Miss Black American pageant contestant, and served three years (of a six-year sentence) in prison for the crime — spurred controversy from the get-go, eliciting at least one petition to have his role recast. (Tyson, the Washington Post‘s TV Column reports, is playing a death row inmate who murdered a man who abused him as a child.)

Tyson addressed the Change.org petition (which was started by rape survivor Marcie Kaveney and at last count amassed 11,600 signatures) in a TV Guide Magazine interview, saying, “I’m sorry that [Kaveney] has a difference of opinion, but she’s entitled to it. I’m sorry that she’s not happy [but] I didn’t rape nobody or do anything like that, and this lady wasn’t there to know if I did or not.” (Tyson always maintained his 1991 encounter with the pageant contestant was consensual.)

“I’m not trying to get rich and famous; I’m just trying to feed my family,” he added. “I’m clean and sober five years, I haven’t broken any laws or did any crimes. I’m just trying to live my life.”