Convicted rapist Mike Tyson launches  charity to give children from broken homes 'a fighting chance' 

• Former world heavyweight champion has launched the Mike Tyson Cares Foundation
• Tyson has spent his recent years trying to reconnect with his six children by four different mothers

By Jill Reilly

PUBLISHED: 04:00 EST, 23 November 2012 | UPDATED: 04:53 EST, 23 November 2012

Former world heavyweight champion Mike Tyson who was reviled as the 'baddest man on the planet' has launched a children's charity.

The 46-year-old announced yesterday the creation of the Mike Tyson Cares Foundation which vows to 'give kids a fighting chance' by offering safe spaces to help children from broken homes.

'I am very proud to launch Mike Tyson Cares Foundation,' said Tyson, who was jailed in 1992 for raping beauty queen Desiree Washington, which he has always denied.

New direction: Former world heavyweight champion Mike Tysson who was reviled as the 'baddest man on the planet' has launched a children's charity

'I want my legacy to be about charity and helping children. This is my start.'

His foray into philanthropy is a far cry from the dangerous, excessive passions of his younger years.

In his turbulent life Tyson has been married three times, fathered eight children and became the youngest heavyweight champion the world has ever seen at just 20.

But fame ruined him and his troubled upbringing - his mother was a prostitute and he never knew his pimp father - came back to haunt him.

He used to keep a white Bengal Tiger named Kenya in his backyard. It cost him around £2,000 a month just to care for him, and the story goes that one day Kenya got loose and caused quite a commotion in Southington, Ohio.

He was also in the grip of numerous addictions; to sex, often with strippers and prostitutes, even though he was married with children; and to spending on an improbable scale.

He spent around £200million, much of it on gifts to people he barely knew, on cars he never drove, and on bad business deals which he barely troubled to understand.

Inconsolable': Former heavyweight champion boxer Mike Tyson is pictured with daughter Rayna (right) and her daughter at a screening of the movie Tyson in April in New York

Reconnecting: Boxer Mike Tyson smiles with his son during a news conference in 2003. Tyson has spent his recent years trying to reconnect with his six children by four different mothers

He was also addicted to alcohol and drugs, having a long dependence on marijuana and a fondness for cocaine and Hennessy brandy.

Two years ago, he was jailed for driving under the influence of cocaine and was found with three bags of the drug in his car.

At times, he has used prescription drugs like Zoloft for depression, too. 'I'm on the Zoloft to keep me from killing y'all,' he once announced at a press conference.

In an interview with Las Vegas Weekly Tyson said: ‘Laying in bed in a hotel room - I try never to be alone, even if it’s a prostitute, a dog.

Troubled: Tyson's first marriage to actress Robin Givens fell apart amid allegations of him being violent - he is now married for the third time

Mug shot: In his turbulent life Tyson has been married three times, fathered eight children and became the youngest heavyweight champion the world has ever seen at just 20

‘This is really dark. I am in my hotel suite, I’ve got seven women there, and I have a morphine drip, and I had my cocaine, and I had my (Viagra like pill) Cialis, I had my marijuana, I had the Hennessy, and I am at my lowest point because I got paranoid and I thought these women were trying to rob me and set me up.

‘I started beating them. I was in a dark place. There was a purpose, though, because I didn’t want to give them any more of my soul.

‘So this is my devil, this is where I am, I am locked up alone. There is nobody there telling me that I’m doing too much.'

After years of controversial headlines, at the age of 39, Tyson retired in 2005 – but he admits he’s ‘the same guy – I just grew up a little bit’.

He has spent his recent years trying to reconnect with his six children by four different mothers.

In a television interview a few years ago, he said: 'I'm really trying to work into recreating my relationship, rebuilding my relationship with my children.

This one does bite! Tyson bites the ear of Evander Holyfield's during their infamous 1997 fight

'I neglected my children and the people I was in love with at one time, and I'm bearing the brunt of it right now. At this stage in my life, I'm starting to feel the pain and the effects from it, and I would like to rekindle that relationship.'

But his fatherhood has been blighted by tragedy.

In 2009, Tyson was said to be 'inconsolable' after his four-year-old daughter Exodus died after her neck was apparently caught in a cord dangling from a stationary treadmill at the family home in Phoenix, Arizona.

In what police described as a 'horrible accident', the child either slipped, or put her head in the loop of a cord and suffocated.

She was found by her older brother Miguel, seven, who alerted their mother, dancer Sol Xochitl, who had been cleaning in another part of the modest suburban house.

Locked up: Mike Tyson leaves court after being convicted of raping beauty queen Desiree Washington, which he has always denied. He was jailed in 1992

Xochitl, 34, tried to revive her daughter with CPR, but the youngster never regained consciousness.

Tyson, who does not live with the family, rushed from his home in Las Vegas to be by his daughter's bedside.

He spent the night at the hospital  -  where his daughter was on a life-support machine  -  and had been warned by doctors at St Joseph Hospital in Phoenix his daughter had a less than a 50-50 chance of recovering.

He and Xochitl were at the bedside when the youngster lost her fight for life, and did not return to the family home following their daughter's death.

Reflecting on his life Tyson told Las Vegas Weekly in April that he is now the happiest he has ever been, and is just trying to be a good husband to his third wife, and a good father to his children.

Tyson said: ‘In order to wear the crown, you have to have a miserable life, and that is the one that inherits the crown.

‘I don’t know, you have to go from the worst to reach the best. I’m just that extreme type of person. That is who I am, the guy that has no limits.’