Successful athletes are some of the most well-paid people in the world, but that
gravy train doesn't last forever. Sometimes even legends try their hand at post-career moves that
don't exactly work out. Here are the worst post-retirement careers of famous athletes.
Mike Tyson earned hundreds of millions during his boxing career, but the heavyweight champion
famously threw away his fortune on jewelry, sex workers, mansions, and cars before ultimately
filing for bankruptcy. His expenses also included his extensive pigeon collection,
which sparked an unlikely career that spiraled him deeper into debt.
Tyson was just a child when he started raising pigeons to escape from his rough Brooklyn
upbringing. He's even admitted that the birds got him into fighting in the first place, as a bully
killed one of his beloved pets, which sparked a lifelong desire to nurture the fighter within.
"One guy put a bird under and ran off, so I ran after him. 'Please, give me my bird! Please,
please, can I have my bird?!' 'Oh, you want your bird?' He first smacked me. 'You want this?'"
Post-retirement, Tyson's pigeons brought him peace, and he began competitively racing them.
In 2011, his newfound career was documented on the Animal Planet show Taking on Tyson.
That year, he told The Los Angeles Times that the sport was just as competitive and intense
as boxing. Unfortunately, it isn't cheap either. It's unclear how much Tyson has
spent over the course of his pigeon career, but estimates point to tens of thousands of dollars.
In 2016, he reportedly bought some Norwegian pigeons for about 15,000 euros,
although he doesn't seem to sweat the price tag. As he told The New York Times,
"Make a pigeon your friend and you'll never be lonely."
Nine-time Olympic gold medalist Carl Lewis retired from track and field in 1997
and then jumped into showbiz. He was actually still competing when he embarked on a rather
infamous singing career. In 1985, he recorded an album that he admitted:
"wasn't bad... it just wasn't good."
His notorious attempt to sing the national anthem before a 1993 NBA Finals game may have been even
worse. Post-retirement, Lewis had what can only be described as a failed acting career. If he
weren't already a famous athlete, he'd probably still be waiting tables looking for his next gig.
His highlights included a part in 2003's Alien Hunter, which doesn't even have enough reviews
to warrant a rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Then there was 2007's Tournament of Dreams,
which doesn't have any critic reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, but somehow has a 100% audience score.
Lewis then tried to pull an Arnold Schwarzenegger and parlay his public
notoriety into a political career. He ran for the state Senate in New Jersey,
but was forced to withdraw because he didn't meet the residency requirements,
having spent more time in California than the Garden State. Lewis reportedly told a Houston
newspaper that he only ran because he was, quote, "bored." You truly can't win 'em all.
Since retiring from the NBA in 2000, Dennis Rodman has taken on a rather unique political
career. It all began when the former Chicago Bull struck up an unlikely friendship with
North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un . He first flew to the country in 2013 to meet the "Dear
Leader," who's reportedly a big fan of the 90 Bulls teams. Following the trip,
Rodman claimed that Kim was his "friend for life" while refusing to accept the title of diplomat,
though he did change his tune when the Trump administration came to power.
In 2019, Rodman took it upon himself to help mediate Donald Trump's second summit with
Kim in Vietnam. In a letter "From The Desk Of Dennis K. Rodman" that he posted on Twitter,
he dubbed himself the "Ambassador of Goodwill to North Korea" and urged Trump to use his
"continued friendship" with Kim for "our Nation's benefit." That meeting reportedly
re-opened the discussion of a new nuclear deal. Ultimately it wasn't very fruitful,
though, as North Korea later promised to increase its nuclear capabilities in 2020.
"If they understand the fact that if we can just sit there and have a smooth, a
comfortable relationship, smile, laugh, joke a little bit, okay, great. It ain't gonna be war."
Jose Canseco had a long and respectable Major League Baseball career,
but he's since managed to cultivate a much less savory post-retirement legacy.
A lot of this had to do with his attempt to become an author and ultimately just becoming a snitch.
Canseco retired in 2002 and proceeded to completely sell out his MLB peers in 2005
when he released his book Juiced, which focused largely on alleged steroid use within the league.
Most notably, he fingered Mark McGwire, Rafael Palmeiro , and Sammy Sosa , which led to them
addressing the claims in a congressional hearing later that year alongside Canseco.
McGwire and Palmeiro's careers were irreparably damaged. Palmeiro tried to
initially deny using performance enhancers but was suspended when he tested positive.
Today, Canseco regrets ratting out his bash brother McGwire. In the
A&E documentary Jose Canseco: The Last Shot, he admitted,
"I never realized this was going to blow up and hurt so many people."
He also confessed that he was out for revenge after feeling
like the MLB ousted him and further explained,
"If I could meet with Mark McGwire and these players,
I definitely would apologize to them. They were my friends. I admired them. I respected them."
Magic Johnson's post-retirement careers have mostly, but not entirely, been successful.
After winning five NBA titles with the Los Angeles Lakers in the 80s,
he launched Magic Johnson Enterprises, which included a chain of movie theaters and was
valued at $500 million in 2009. He was even considering buying the Los Angeles Dodgers,
but he instead jumped into the world of late night talk shows.
Launched in 1998, The Magic Hour actually started strong, briefly beating out The Late Show With
David Letterman in the ratings in New York. But that reign was short-lived, and critics
slammed Johnson for his poor interview skills. He even reportedly needed speech coaches to teach
him how to relax. The whole thing culminated in a notorious interview with Howard Stern,
who attacked Johnson's talk show skills, personal life, and battle with HIV.
"The show needs some work. It does need some work."
The series was ultimately cancelled after just eight weeks.
Jim Bunning is one of a select few baseball players who ever threw a perfect game,
and after 17 seasons in the MLB, he more than earned his place in the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Unfortunately, his legacy has been tarnished by his post-retirement career as a politician.
Even in his obituary, The New York Times referred to the Republican as little
more than "blunt-spoken," "cantankerous," and nationally notorious "for some strange remarks."
Bunning served as minority leader in the Kentucky State Senate before being elected to the U.S.
House of Representatives in 1986. He served for six terms before being elected into the Senate in
1998 and again in 2004. To this day, he's the only Baseball Hall of Famer to serve in Congress, but
he's better known for his outbursts than for his actual politics. In 2004, he had to issue a public
apology after likening his Democratic opponent to one of Saddam Hussein's sons. He was so
volatile throughout his career that in 2006, Time listed him as "one of America's worst senators."
"I have never really cared if I stood alone here in the Congress."
Lenny Dykstra had a legendary baseball career with the New York Mets and Philadelphia Phillies,
and he also once owned Wayne Gretzy's 13,000-square-foot mansion, but the mighty fall
when they make poor financial decisions. He lost his $15 million home after declaring bankruptcy,
and left it in such a state of disrepair that it was nearly deemed a biological hazard
because raw sewage was seeping from the main drain line. So how did things get so bad?
As it turns out, Dykstra's business, The Players Club, was a colossal failure.
He attempted to wrap a magazine, charter jet service, and brokerage-slash-investment
service into one business that was aimed exclusively at professional athletes.
But that's not a huge demographic, and the whole thing imploded because of cash flow problems.
Dykstra would eventually owe a considerable amount of back rent on the company's office, the internet
and telephone got shut off, and he was also slapped with about a dozen lawsuits. The magazine
lasted just three issues, and Dykstra subsequently spent two years in prison for bankruptcy fraud.
Tonya Harding's ice skating career ended on such a bad note that the questionable endeavors
she pursued in its wake can't possibly hold a candle to that kind of public embarrassment.
In July 1994, she was banned from the U.S. Figure Skating Association and stripped of
the gold medal she won at the U.S. National Championships for her alleged involvement
in an attack on her rival Nancy Kerrigan . Despite adamantly maintaining her innocence,
Harding pleaded guilty to conspiracy and landed three years probation.
The incident left Harding blacklisted to the point that she couldn't even work as a sanctioned coach.
So instead, she channeled her aggression into a boxing career, but not before trying to become a
musician with her band the Golden Blades, which was booed off the stage during a hometown gig.
She reemerged into the spotlight in 2002 when she appeared on the Fox series Celebrity Boxing, where
she fought against Paula Jones, who was best known for her harassment allegations against President
Bill Clinton. Harding subsequently signed a four-year professional boxing contract and won
some fights despite being booed and frequently criticized. Her career was derailed following
a bout of pneumonia, and she ultimately abandoned it altogether. Eventually, she hit the end of the
D-List celebrity road with a third place finish on the 26th season of Dancing With the Stars.
Legendary baller Michael Jordan retired twice, temporarily, from the NBA,
first in 1993 and then again in 1999, before calling it quits for good in 2003. With all these
retirements came post-retirement careers that could be considered part of a mid-life crisis.
But were they actually secretly genius? You might scoff at describing something
like Space Jam that way. But despite bad reviews at the time, it's kind of held up. One positive
review in 2020 came from Vox film critic Alissa Wilkinson, who called it "kind of visionary."
"Just take the picture!" "All right." "What kind of camera is that?"
"It's just a-"
"Would you not point that at me, please? Close the lens cap."
Sports Illustrated's Tom Verducci made a similar argument about Jordan's other sports career.
In between Jordan's two stints with the Chicago Bulls, he spent 13 months playing
minor league baseball with the Double A Birmingham Barons. At first glance, his merits were few,
as he had a low batting average and reportedly didn't even know which base to throw to.
But Verducci claims that in hindsight it's easy to see that Jordan was steadily improving.
But that progress was interrupted by the infamous Major League Baseball strike of 1994-1995.
Jordan refused to cross the picket line and become a replacement player,
eventually leaving baseball and returning to the Bulls. According to Verducci,
"Insufficient skills did not stop Michael Jordan's baseball career. The strike did."
German tennis star Boris Becker took on an interesting post-retirement career in order
to help shake his debt. Typically, people in debt will pick up a job,
no matter how low-paying, and slowly chip away at what they owe over the course of
months and years. But Becker did not follow this path. Instead,
he invented an unpaid job that would grant him legal immunity to court-ordered debt repayment.
Becker reportedly failed to pay about 3.3 million pounds, or about 4.32 million dollars, when a
London court declared him bankrupt in June 2017. The following year, he claimed that he had taken a
gig as the "Central African Republic's attaché for sports, culture and humanitarian affairs to the
European Union." This job was unpaid, but it did grant Becker diplomatic immunity from his debts,
or so he claimed. At the time, he had reportedly never even visited the Central African Republic.
Unsurprisingly, the British government looked into it, and officials from the CAR
claimed that they had no record of Becker's new job. They also claimed that his supposed
diplomatic passport was a fake with a serial number associated with stolen passports.
Becker's legal argument for immunity was further weakened when the passport showed
that he actually had a different position, with different perks than those of an "attaché."
Becker eventually gave up the immunity bid and began selling off his trophies to make payments.
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