Not a lot of people can claim they’ve lived in a multi-million dollar mansion! But Evander Holyfield can. Following his success in the sport, the only four-time heavyweight champion built a 45,000 sq. ft. mansion. It was the largest single-family home in Georgia. However, the house turned out to be more pain than pleasure. Back in 2012, ‘The Real Deal’ went bankrupt after separating from his wife. 

It forced the former heavyweight champion to sell his mansion, now valued at close to $230 million, to the bank. To add insult to injury, the bank auctioned Holyfield’s massive castle for a mere $7.5 million. In a recent interview with Vlad TV, Holyfield opened up about his decision to build the massive mansion while also making a candid confession. 

Evander Holyfield: His unintentional mansion journey and his one desire

‘The Real Deal’ began by confessing he wasn’t sure what would qualify a house to be big. He just wanted them to start working on it because he got the money to pay for it. “I didn’t know what huge was…my whole thing is that…they start building it…and I got all this money,” confessed Holyfield. He went on to suggest that no one in his family thought of checking how big the home was going to be because he did not ask for a big home.

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“None of my family members…know to appoint to and all this so then so we have nobody to check to how big because I didn’t tell them I want a big old house,” said Holyfield. Later in the interview, Holyfield confessed he wanted a better life for his kids. He wanted to leave them with something substantial. “I wanted my kids to have a better life than me, and I wanted to leave them something right,” said Holyfield.

How did Holyfield go bankrupt?

Despite making millions of dollars from his boxing career, the retired pugilist faced financial ruin due to a plethora of bad financial decisions. Adding to his downfall, Holyfield’s lavish spending habits, substantial child support payments, and the costly mansion pushed him to go bankrupt. In case you’re wondering how costly the mansion was, the mansion had a yearly maintenance cost of $1 million and its electricity bill supposedly came up to $16500 per month.  All this made Holyfield struggle to sustain the property. 

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However, despite all the adversities, Holyfield managed to recover. The mansion was eventually sold to musician Rick Ross for $5.8 million, and Holyfield moved to a more modest apartment. The retired boxer made strategic investments and started lucrative business ventures in the following years to turn his life around. Evander Holyfield’s financial journey can serve as an inspirational comeback story against all odds. 

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