Sugar Ray Leonard discusses boxing career, drug addiction and sexual abuse in new memoir

Kam Williams | 7/18/2012, 9:09 a.m.
Sugar Ray Leonard discusses boxing career, drug addiction and sexual abuse in new memoir Kam Williams...


One of the most prodigious pugilists of all time, Sugar Ray Leonard was born in Rocky Mount, N.C., on May 17, 1956, to Cicero and Getha Leonard. The fifth of seven kids, his family moved to Washington, D.C., in 1959 before settling down seven years later in Palmer Park, Md., where his father was employed as a supermarket night manager and his mother as a nurse.


He went on to become the first fighter to earn more than $100 million over the course of an enviable career, winning world championship titles in five different weight classes while squaring off in classic showdowns with such formidable opponents as Roberto “No Mas” Duran, Tommy “The Hitman” Hearns, Marvelous Marvin Hagler and Wilfred Benitez.


What is your best memory of Montreal?



It was a whole different world, and Montreal was an absolutely beautiful setting unlike anywhere I’d ever been before. So, Montreal in ’76 was an encompassing experience I will cherish for the rest of my life.   



Something that he said or an expression that he made gave me the little boost I needed to be open about it and to talk about it as transparently as I did.


I saw you on Stephen Colbert and loved it. He was wondering why a movie hasn’t been made about your life.