Floyd Mayweather's dark history with women

By Candace Sutton

What do UFC champion Conor McGregor and five glamorous women including Josie Harris, Shantel Jackson and Melissa Brim have in common?

They've all been beaten up by boxing superstar Floyd Mayweather, one of the world's highest paid athletes.

For Conor McGregor, it all happened in a boxing ring when he lost in a super welterweight match by TKO on Sunday to the undefeated world champion Mayweather in Las Vegas.

For the three women, all former partners of Mayweather, there was no fair fight and when the violent attacks ceased, he continued on with expensive lawyers.

The repeat abuser of women has reportedly committed seven different assaults against five different women.

But he has emerged from the court battles about his domestic violence virtually unscathed, serving a total of two months in prison and two days of house arrest.

Known as "Money Mayweather" and previously "Pretty Boy Floyd", the multi-millionaire boxing star walked away from the McGregor fight with a staggering extra $373 million in his pocket.

Mayweather lives in a $9 million, 22,000-square foot palace in a gated community on a golf course in Vegas.

He owns a fleet of luxury cars and posts images on Instagram of piles of cash and himself in designer clothes.

Boxing aficionados talk about Mayweather's "sweet science", the "beautiful precision" he works with in the boxing ring.

Mayweather and then-girlfriend Shantel Jackson at a 2011 court hearing for assaulting his former partner. Photo / AP

Less is said about Mayweather's dark truth, how he beats women with those same, skilled fists, and sometimes does it in front of their children.

Mayweather has faced charges which begin as assault and battery and then been knocked down to "reduced misdemeanour".

In 2010 when he beat the mother of three of his children, two of them - his 11 and nine-year-old sons - were there to witness it.

Mayweather and Josie Harris, above, had three children together before they split over his abuse. Photo / Supplied

JOSIE HARRIS

Early in the morning on September 9, 2010, Josie Harris was awakened in the house - owned by Mayweather - where she lived with their children.

Mayweather lived elsewhere with his girlfriend at the time, Shantel Jackson.

He turned up to confront Ms Harris about whether she was dating NBA player C.J. Watson.

Ms Harris called the police and told them she wanted Mayweather to go.

At around 4am, he returned with another man.

Ms Harris woke to Mayweather yanking her hair and screaming at her about text messages from Watson that he had seen on her phone.

Mayweather flew into a wild rage, punching her on the top of and in the back of the head.

He kicked her, pulled her hair, and allegedly tried to break her left arm.

"I'm going to get someone to pour acid on you," he also said, according to the police report.

The estranged couple's nine-year-old son said in a statement, "He was punching her and kicking her. He was punching her in the head and he was stomping on her sholder [sic]."

When Ms Harris yelled for the children to call the police, Mayweather threatened them with violence if they did and his male friend blocked the way.

The 11-year-old son escaped via a bathroom window, "jumped the fence" and made his way to the main security gate, where he told the guard to call the police and an ambulance.

A doctor's examination of Harris afterwards showed bruises and a concussion.

Police charged Mayweather with misdemeanour battery of Ms Harris, threatening their children and grand larceny for taking their mobile phones.

Ms Harris claimed to have been physically abused by Mayweather at least six times before the final beating.

He faced up to 34 years in prison, but pleaded guilty to reduced charges after a deal with prosecutors.

At the District Court in Las Vegas, Nevada, Mayweather appeared in the company of Shantel Jackson, whose time at the receiving end of his violence was yet to come.
Mayweather spent just 60 days in prison.

In 2014, one of his sons who had witnessed the beating - Koraun, who was by then aged 15 - branded his father "a coward".

Melissa Brim dated Mayweather, above, in the late 1990s. Photo / Supplied

MELISSA BRIM

Children were no stranger to Mayweather's violence, as another former partner Melissa Brim can attest.

Ms Brim, the mother of his daughter, Ayanna, dated the boxer in the late 1990s.

But the couple broke up in 2000, shortly before Mayweather was found guilty of two counts of domestic battery against Ms Brim.

She said Mayweather had argued with her over child support for Ayanna.

According to court documents, Mayweather swung a car door open into her head, then punched her three times in the face.

Ms Brim was forced to call police from a convenience store.

Several months later, Ms Brim attested that she and Mayweather were at a mall with their daughter.

Mayweather asked a friend to hold Ayanna, then punched Ms Brim in the neck.

Mayweather pleaded guilty to two counts of domestic battery against Brim.

He received a suspended six-month jail sentence, a $3000 fine, 48 hours of community service, and two days of house arrest.

In 2015, Ms Brim's son Devion Cromwell told police Mayweather had put him in a chokehold at Halloween the previous year at the boxer's Las Vegas mansion where his "adopted son" lived.

Cromwell, 19, was having a party at the house when the boxer returned and ordered everyone out.

Cromwell responded: "You're not my father" and Mayweather allegedly put Cromwell in the headlock.

Cromwell later withdrew allegations against Mayweather.

HERNEATHA MCGILL AND KARRA BLACKBURN

It was August 1, 2003 and two women were among the crowd at the Ra nightclub, inside the Egyptian-themed Luxor casino in Las Vegas.

Both women, friends of Melissa Brim, were standing at the bar when Mayweather approached with two other men.

Immediately, Ms McGill, who had previously encountered problems with Mayweather, wanted to leave.

Ms McGill said as Mayweather got closer she could read his lips.

He was saying he and the two men should hurt her and Ms Blackburn.

Before the women could get away, Ms McGill testified, Mayweather punched her in the jaw and Blackburn in the head.

"I fell to the ground," Ms McGill said, "and Karra tried to help, and as she was, Mr.
Mayweather hit her as well. After she was hit I helped her up and we ran out of the club."

In June 2004, Justice of the Peace Deborah Lippis found Mayweather guilty of two counts of battery for punching the women.

Mayweather was given suspended six-month prison sentences on each count and a $500 fine or 50 hours of community service for each count.

Ms Lippis said if Mayweather didn't complete "impulse control" counselling and stay out of trouble for a year, he would spend a year in prison.

"You may be a terrific and famous fighter, but that doesn't make you a god," said Ms Lippis, who added that she could put him in prison in a "New York minute".

Mayweather's lawyer, Richard Wright, said he found it hard to believe that neither woman had bruises and neither needed medical attention.

"I have no clue (why Mayweather punched me). I still have no clue," Ms McGill said. "I think it was because I was friends with his kids' mom. He didn't like her to have friends."

SHANTEL JACKSON

She was there when her fiance Floyd Mayweather faced court over charges of beating his former partner and mother of three of his children.

She would stand by him while he served two months in prison, but she, too, would accuse him of violence.

In September 2014, Ms Jackson sued Mayweather for assault, battery and false imprisonment

She said that he had attacked her on multiple occasions and threatened her with a gun.

According to court documents, ESPN reported, when she threatened to leave him he held a gun pointed at her foot and said, "Which toe do you want me to shoot?"

He then allegedly demanded that Jackson take off her 17-carat engagement ring at gunpoint.

Ms Jackson said that after seven years with the boxer she had decided to leave him because he was abusive and she didn't believe he would change.

"I have been embarrassed and humiliated more than I can ever imagine by Floyd, whom I once called my best friend and fiance," she said in a statement.

It was a response to what Mayweather had done after they split up.

Aside from stating "she asked me to help her become famous" when they met, he had posted sonogram images of a foetus on Facebook, claiming it was a pregnancy which she had aborted.

In court documents he later said, "Both parties are public figures. Abortion is a public issue.

Ms Jackson also claimed that Mayweather had threatened to post photos of her naked if she didn't remove from social media a picture of herself out with the rap singer Nelly.

A few days after Ms Jackson filed the suit against Mayweather, sports journalist Rachel Nichols asked him about the domestic violence.

He batted away the claims.

"No pictures," he said. "Just hearsay and allegations. And I signed a plea bargain. Once again, not true."

Floyd Mayweather turned 40 years old in February and despite his recent fight against McGregor is officially retired.

He has topped the Forbes and Sports Illustrated lists of the 50 highest-paid athletes, and in 2014 and 2015 Forbes named him as the highest paid athlete in the world.

In a boxing ring, he has never been knocked out or beaten as a professional.

The losers in the ring, bloodied and beaten, pile up.

As do the women he abuses.