Floyd Mayweather was due to visit Australia this week for a promotional tour, but the boxing champion was denied a Visa because of his history of domestic violence, with multiple convictions and jail time served.
The tour has since been cancelled, and per a report in Boxing Scene, publicist Max Markson, one of the people handling Mayweather’s visit, has revealed the boxer’s list of demands for his time here.
In short, Mayweather’s tour was shaping up as a Treat Yo Self-style fiesta, on par with something Tom Haverford and Donna Meagle might dream up.
His hotel rooms in Sydney and Melbourne were to have been stocked with Cristal at all times, along with a never-ending supply of gummy bears, M&Ms, fresh fruit and juices.
Mayweather was to have appeared at two $200-$1000 per-head dinners at Melbourne’s Crown Palladium and Sydney’s Darling Island Wharf, but he reserved the right to refuse pictures with all but the highest of high-rolling VIPs.
Now sure, that’s all fairly boilerplate celebrity stuff so far, nothing that would exactly put Mariah Carey to shame, but it gets better. For instance, Mayweather also travels with his own soundtrack.
The boxer’s entourage includes two DJs, and he requested that nightclubs Studio 3 and The X-Studio turn the decks over to them for the duration of his time there. Any breach of these conditions would be “punishable by a steep fine.”
Though bald, Mayweather requested that a barber skilled in African American hair be available 24 hours a day, along with a butler, a chef, a makeup artist and a women’s hairdresser.
“How can you possibly guarantee you can find a barber like that three in the morning?” an aggrieved source complained to Fairfax. “Because that’s exactly when Floyd would ask and there’d be all manner of drama when it didn’t happen.”
Aside from importers of American candy, the hotel industry would also have done well out of the tour – Mayweather’s 31-deep entourage includes security guards, PAs, agents, a mascot and a former Miss Universe, and they take up a whole floor of rooms.
It’s rumoured that Mayweather was going to use his Australian tour as a platform to officially announce a fight with Manny Pacquiao, something he’s been teasing for a while, although this was not set in stone.
All talk of celebrity and #richpeopleproblems aside, though, it’s still admirable that Australian immigration had the balls to stand up and say no to someone with his staggeringly awful history of domestic violence.
Just because you’re a famous person, there are still consequences for behaving like a jerk.
Photo: Ethan Miller via Getty Images
