Mike Tyson explains story behind how he bought his tigers

Warning: Video contains coarse language

Mike Tyson revealed that a conversation from prison led to him buying his white Bengal tigers in the 1990s.

The former heavyweight boxing champion shared the story behind the purchase during an appearance on "The Joe Rogan Experience" podcast Thursday.

"I'm in prison at the time," Tyson said. "So I'm in prison, I'm talking to my car dealer at the time and he has some cars that belong to a (mutual friend), and he's discussing, 'If he doesn't pay for these cars, I'm going to sell these cars to somebody and get some horses.'

"I said, 'What, you can get horses? And trade horses in for cars?' Because I had a lot of cars, I'd probably get some horses too. And he said, 'Yeah man, you can get cougars, lions, tigers...' I said, 'You do?! Can you get me some tigers?' He said, 'Yeah.'

"The guy said, 'Imagine how cool that'd be?' Because I had a bunch of fancy cars, 'Imagine that man, you'd be in an Aston Martin or a Ferrari (and) you'd have a tiger right next to you, man. That'd be so awesome.' And I'm a young guy. I'm saying to myself, 'Wow, that would be cool, right?' I said, 'Yeah, get me some cubs, man.' And then when I came home, I had those cubs right there waiting for me."

Tyson eventually sold the tigers, which cost him a reported $70,000 each to buy and tens of thousands more to care for.