Boxing legend Mike Tyson says he hand-delivered a pardon request from Sean “Diddy” Combs to President Donald Trump after the music mogul asked him to do it from jail.
Tyson told SiriusXM’s Andy Cohen Live that he spoke with Combs behind bars, got the ask, and followed through. The former heavyweight champion put it simply: he did what his friend told him to do.
Daily Mail reported Tyson’s account of the delivery and the friendship that led to it, tying the moment to Combs’ push for clemency while he serves time in New Jersey.
Combs is held at FCI Fort Dix. He is serving a 50-month sentence after a jury convicted him on two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution under the 1910 Mann Act, the old federal law that bars moving a person across state or national lines for prostitution or related “immoral” purposes. The same jury acquitted him of sex trafficking and racketeering after a two-month trial.
He has denied the sexual-misconduct allegations, tried to appeal, and still faces upwards of 70 civil lawsuits. That is the backdrop for the letter Tyson says he carried to the president.
On Andy Cohen Live, Tyson described himself as “friendly with Puff” and said the request came during a call from prison. Cohen pressed him on whether he had given the president a letter from Combs. Tyson did not dodge.
He answered in plain terms.
"I did what he told me to do, yeah."
The New York Post reported the same core claim: Tyson confirmed he handed over the letter after Combs asked, and sources described it as a pardon request delivered during a White House visit.
Tyson also voiced surprise at how prosecutors built the case. He framed the Mann Act charge as a century-old tool pulled off the shelf.
"Listen, I was surprised that they went through so many lengths to get him,"
He went further on the statute itself.
"They used a 110-year-old rule to get him, that case 110 years ago, but they used it to get him. Can you imagine that?"
Whatever Tyson thinks of the charging theory, the jury’s split verdict is the record: not guilty on trafficking and racketeering, guilty on the two transportation counts that sent Combs to Fort Dix.
In January, President Trump confirmed he had received a letter from Combs asking for a pardon. He said he would not grant it. He did not say how the letter reached him at the time.
That refusal sits in a long line of hard calls on clemency, including fights over who runs the process inside the Justice Department and changes in the DOJ pardon attorney post that shape how requests move.
Months later, in an August 2025 Newsmax interview, Trump talked about knowing Combs without warming to a break. He separated personal history from the decision in front of him.
"I was very friendly with him. I got along with him great,"
He added that Combs “seemed like a nice guy,” then drew a brighter line on politics and distance.
"I didn't know him well, but when I ran for office he was very hostile."
Friendly talk is not a get-out-of-prison card. Trump’s public stance stayed no.
Combs’ release date has already slipped. An NBC News report cited in coverage said it moved from January 21, 2028, to March 2, 2028, after alleged misdeeds inside, claims that fellow inmates were put to work cooking, cleaning, and giving massages, plus talk of outside alcohol and a cellphone. Those are allegations carried in that reporting, not fresh court findings laid out in full here.
Even a shortened sentence would not erase the civil docket. Upwards of 70 lawsuits remain a separate track from the criminal counts the jury decided.
Presidential pardons fix federal criminal exposure. They do not automatically wipe every private claim, a limit readers have watched in other high-profile clemency fights, including debate over how far a Biden-era pardon actually reaches when oversight continues.
Combs sought the one remedy only the president can give on the federal conviction. Trump’s answer was a closed door.
Tyson is a famous friend with access. That is how this letter reportedly moved, not through a quiet filing alone, but through a boxing icon willing to carry it into a meeting with the president.
Access is not entitlement. Voters who watched years of selective mercy arguments, including Hunter Biden’s own comments on his father’s pardon, know the credibility test cuts both ways. If clemency becomes a celebrity errand service, the law looks negotiable.
Trump treated this ask as a no. He left the conviction and the sentence in place while Combs keeps fighting on appeal and in civil court.
Accountability still has a simple form: a jury verdict, a prison term, and a president who declined to erase it because a famous friend showed up with paper from Fort Dix. That is how the system is supposed to feel when the ask is big and the record is ugly.