This article contains references to substance abuse and suicide.
Whether you knew him as the two-time world heavyweight boxing champion or the man behind everyone’s favorite portable heated grill, George Foreman — who sadly died in March 2025 at age 76 — was unarguably one of the most famous sportsmen of his time.
Nicknamed Big George, Foreman shot to fame by winning gold at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics and, after turning professional, became a dominant force in the ring. Although he lost the boxing world’s most iconic fight — the 1974 Rumble in the Jungle against fellow G.O.A.T. candidate Muhammad Ali — he staged its most remarkable comeback, reclaiming his world title in 1995 at the relatively ripe old age of 45. By this point, he was just as renowned for his work as a church minister and the eponymous kitchen appliance, which made him more money than any of his sporting endeavors.
Of course, Foreman’s life wasn’t always so charmed. From deprived beginnings and divorces to near-bankruptcies and near-death experiences, here’s a look at 14 times the boxing icon experienced tragedy.
George had a deprived childhood
George Foreman was raised in the Fifth Ward of Houston, Texas, an area so overridden with crime and violence that his family — including his mom and six siblings — described it as the “Bloody Fifth.” Sadly, the future boxer succumbed to a life of criminality himself in his teens, with mugging his most common offense. But there was often one particularly sad catalyst for such behavior.
“I’ve always been motivated by food, because I was always hungry,” Foreman once remarked (via BBC). “There never was enough food to eat for me, for various reasons.” In fact, the sportsman regularly had to go to school without any lunch and would resort to blowing up his brown paper sack to make it appear as though it was filled with treats. On occasion, his mom would have to feed herself and all of her children with just a solitary hamburger.
Foreman also found entertainment hard to come by, as he explained to Esquire in 2006. “We couldn’t afford a TV. But my Aunt Leola let me watch hers. I’d watch “The Donna Reed Show” and “Leave It to Beaver” and wonder what it would be like to have my own bed. Shutting off a reading lamp next to your bed seemed like the height of luxury.”
George was repeatedly bullied by his siblings
As if growing up in a deprived area where bloodshed was a daily occurrence wasn’t enough, a young George Foreman also had to contend with being repeatedly bullied. And his own flesh and blood were often the culprits.
“Sometimes my older brothers and sisters would tease me, call me Mo-head,” Foreman explained to Esquire in 2006. “I didn’t know why. Sometimes they’d say, ‘You’re not really our brother.’ That would drive me crazy. Even before I outgrew them, they learned that the teasing wasn’t worth the consequences.”
Indeed, the emotional abuse Foreman suffered at the hands of his six siblings also had another knock-on effect. He became a bully himself, regularly using his fists to settle differences at home and school. No doubt that his fellow students were relieved when the future Olympian decided to drop out of E.O. Smith Junior High School at the age of just 14.
George developed an alcohol addiction in his teens
As well as mugging the citizens of Houston’s Fifth Ward for money for food and for general thuggery, George Foreman also made himself a menace due to the demon drink. Indeed, the future heavyweight champion of the world would often spend his ill-gotten gains on alcohol. And his dependence became so strong that he almost turned into a full-blown teenage addict.
Foreman decided to turn his life around following an incident in which he’d beaten up a close pal. On seeing his bruised and bloodied face the following day, the then 19-year-old asked the friend who had been responsible. “You did,” came the reply (via Los Angeles Times) to a stunned Foreman who’d been so intoxicated that he’d failed to remember the physical encounter.
Foreman vowed never to touch a drop of alcohol ever again and stayed true to his word. “I wouldn’t be where I am today if I hadn’t quit smoking and drinking,” he later acknowledged in his 2007 memoir “God In My Corner.”
George found out in his 20s that his dad wasn’t his biological father
George Foreman’s world was shaken to its foundations in 1974 when, at the age of 25, he discovered that J.D. Foreman, the man he’d been calling his dad all his life, wasn’t in fact his biological dad.
The boxer was told the truth by his sister Gloria, who explained that the derogatory term she and their siblings used to call him back in the day wasn’t “Mo-head” as he once thought. It was “Moorehead,” the surname of his real dad, a World War II veteran from Arkansas who’d briefly entered into a relationship with George’s mother, Nancy, during the late 1940s.
The Olympian did end up meeting Leroy Moorehead in a church and instantly forged a bond. Tragically, just a few years after their introduction, the latter died. At his funeral, George was presented with his military flag and service pistol. In the biography “By George,” the sportsman recalled the moment he saw Leroy’s open casket and pondered (via The Los Angeles Times), “Man, that is my father … or could have been.”
George was labeled an ‘Uncle Tom’
After winning a gold medal at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, George Foreman was no doubt expected to be hailed as a national hero. Unfortunately, his celebrations in the ring, particularly the fact that he proudly waved the American flag, meant that he was dismissed by some as a traitor.
Just two days earlier, John Carlos and Tommie Smith had bowed their heads and given a Black Power salute on the podium during the playing of the U.S. national anthem. The 200m athletes, who won silver and gold, respectively, were silently but dramatically protesting in support of their homeland’s civil rights movement. Foreman’s more gung-ho post-victory approach, therefore, was seen as an act of betrayal by the Black community.
Foreman, however, insisted that he wasn’t trying to make any kind of political statement following his defeat of the Soviet Union’s Jonas Čepulis in the heavyweight category. “I was just glad to be an American,” the boxer once remarked (via The New York Times). “Some people have tried to make something of it, calling me an Uncle Tom, but I’m not. I just believe people should live together in peace.”
George claimed to have been sabotaged for the Rumble in the Jungle
Nicknamed the Rumble in the Jungle, the 1974 fight between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman that took place in Zaire undoubtedly remains one of the landmark moments in the sport of boxing. Unfortunately for the latter, and despite being the hot favorite going into the bout, he was on the losing end. And to make matters worse, he believed he’d been done dirty, too.
Indeed, obviously unconcerned about any sour grape criticisms, Foreman alleged that his first official defeat in 41 matches had only occurred due to outside interference. As well as arguing that someone had deliberately loosened the boxing ring’s ropes, the Olympic gold medalist also claimed that he’d been drugged by his very own trainer.
“I almost spit it out,” Foreman wrote in his 2007 memoir “God In My Corner,” (via ESPN), referring to the liquid he was handed shortly before the fight started. “[I told my trainer] ‘Man, I know this water has medicine in it.’ I climbed into the ring with that medicinal taste still lingering in my mouth.” The sportsman went on to state that after just three rounds, he felt like he’d fought five times that amount. “What’s going on here?” he questioned at the time. “Did someone slip a drug in my water?”
George suffered a near-death experience in a locker room
In 1977, George Foreman almost lost his life on the same night he lost to Jimmy Young in Puerto Rico. But it wasn’t in the boxing ring where the sportsman suffered his near-death experience. It was in the locker room.
“I had a vision I was dead and alive again,” Foreman once explained (via The Herald) about the severe case of exhaustion and heatstroke he suffered following the hotly contested bout. “And I was hopeless — the most hopeless thing I’ve ever been in; the most depressing, scary thing. I was gone, and out of nowhere I just got mad and said: ‘I don’t care if this is death, I still believe there is a god.'”
Foreman then recalled how he was brought out of this state after shouting a certain phrase: “And until this day I still scream Jesus Christ has come alive in me.” In the wake of this epiphany, the Olympian decided to give up the sport that had made his name and dedicate his life to the Lord, becoming an ordained minister and street preacher to help spread the word.
George was forced to unretire from boxing to save his youth center
After retiring from the world of boxing in 1977 in the wake of his spiritual epiphany, George Foreman had never intended to get back into the ring. But a full decade later, the youth center bearing his name was fast running the risk of closure due to financial concerns. The Olympian was left with no choice but to put his gloves back on again.
“The only way I knew how to make money and not to beg people for it was to be a boxer again,” Foreman later explained to The Alabama Baptist. “It hurt me to take my shirt off again and be a boxer but it was the only profession I had.”
Of course, having since become more of a lover than a fighter, Foreman found it difficult to compartmentalize his beliefs and his monetary needs. “When I started the youth center, some parents wanted me to get their kid interested in boxing, I said, ‘Look I’m a preacher, I’m not going to be helping boxers, that’s nothing but ignorance and violence.'” Thankfully for the future grill master, his return proved to be a successful one — in 1994, he defeated Michael Moorer to lift the unified IBF, WBA, and lineal heavyweight belts — and in the manner of a feel-good family comedy, he made enough money to save the day!
George’s third wife absconded to St. Lucia with their two kids
In 1983, George Foreman returned home to find that his fourth wife, Andrea Skeete, had taken herself and their two kids, George III and Freeda, to live a new life in St. Lucia. Despite the fact his ex had strong connections on the Caribbean island, the boxer decided he needed to launch a perilous rescue mission.
After chartering an airplane to St. Lucia and dodging customs, Foreman checked into a hotel under a fake identity, bribed various individuals to discover where Skeete was hiding out, and then absconded with Freeda and George III himself. The only problem was he now had to get off the island without getting caught, too.
Things didn’t look too promising when the police surrounded his hotel and demanded he surrender. Just as they were about to knock the doors down, they suddenly told Foreman they’d instead return with a court order the following day. The boxer then gave officials the slip again with the help of a two-manned 50-foot boat gearing up to depart for St. Vincent. For the price of just $5,000, the captain agreed to stow away the trio, and they eventually made it back home. It was an experience that changed Foreman’s outlook on humanity. “Before I was so tucked away into religion, all I could see in other people was a threat to it,” he told Sports Illustrated. “Now I don’t want to share Heaven with no angels — just people.”
George went through four divorces in just over 10 years
George Foreman is survived by his wife Mary Joan Martelly, who he married back in 1985 and went on to have five kids together (including three sons named George), taking his overall tally to 12. But it took a long time for the boxer to find ‘the one.’ In fact, before walking down the aisle with the love of his life, he’d gone through four divorces in the space of just ten years!
Yes, Foreman appeared to be something of a serial monogamist in the 1970s and early 1980s. He first said “I do” to Adrienne Calhoun in 1971 before the pair split three years later. In 1977, the sportsman tied the knot to Cynthia Lewis, a marriage which ended shortly before the decade drew to a close.
Foreman then got hitched to Sharon Goodson in 1981, but their wedded bliss lasted barely 12 months. The Olympian wasted little time getting back on the saddle, so to speak, asking for Andrea Skeete’s hand in marriage in 1982. They at least made it to the three-year mark before Foreman finally found some long-term stability.
George nearly went bankrupt
George Foreman may have died with a reported net worth of $300 million to his name and with his eponymous Lean Mean Fat-Reducing Grilling Machines largely to thank. But the boxer’s financial status wasn’t always so rosy. In fact, in the 1980s, having blown through most of the money he’d made in his early sporting years, he found himself on the verge of bankruptcy.
“It was frightening, the most horrible thing that can happen to a man, as far as I am concerned,” Foreman told The New York Times in 2006. “Scary. Frightening. Nervous. I had a family, people to take care of — my wife, my children, my mother.”
The Olympian, who fathered no fewer than 12 kids, admitted that even though he’d bounced back from such a dire situation, he’s still haunted by it. “It was that scary because you hear about people being homeless and I was only fractions, fractions from being homeless,” Foreman added.
George had a troubled relationship with his daughter Freeda
To say that George Foreman had a turbulent relationship with his daughter Freeda Foreman is something of an understatement. In fact, things got so bad between the pair that during the former’s second heavyweight title win, the latter reportedly rooted for his opponent.
Several years previously, George had staged an audacious rescue bid for a young Freeda and son George III when they were taken to St. Lucia by their mother, Cynthia, without permission. Yet, their relationship deteriorated when Freeda got hitched at the age of 17 while still in high school and the pair spent a notable amount of time estranged.
Luckily, the father and daughter eventually patched up their differences, although Freeda then threw another spanner in the works when she decided to follow in her dad’s footsteps. “He flat out doesn’t like it,” she told The New York Times in 2000 after launching a boxing career. “But I do have his love and support. That’s what counts.”
George felt unmoored after losing his mother
In 1998, George Foreman’s mother, Nancy, died at the age of 78. And having remained close to the woman who single-handedly raised him and his six siblings in Houston’s deprived Fifth Ward throughout his life, the boxer was inevitably left devastated.
“Losing your mother is the most mysterious lostness,” a poetic Foreman told Esquire in 2006. “You know how the astronauts walk in space, attached to the spacecraft by a line? The moment you find out your mother’s died, you feel like someone’s slipped the line off the craft.” Luckily, with the help of his family, the Olympian managed to find his way back again, but his mom was never too far from his mind.
In 2024, Foreman, who’d spent much of the decade keeping a relatively low profile, told Sorted magazine (via Yahoo! News) that Nancy would have been far more appreciative of his work spreading the word than she ever was his boxing career. “It’s funny — I spent so many years and tried as hard as I could to stop her coming at me with all those words and sayings her generation would use … Yet now I look at myself and I am doing exactly the same! Perhaps she was right all along.”
George lost his daughter Freeda to suicide
George Foreman suffered every parent’s worst nightmare in 2019 when his daughter Freeda Foreman was found dead at her Houston Home at the age of just 42. The Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences later confirmed that suicide had been the cause.
Freeda had followed in her father’s boxing footsteps, much to his initial chagrin, at the turn of the century. Her brief but impressive record stood at 5-1 before she decided to concentrate her efforts outside the ring as a promoter and as a mother.
In a tweet posted shortly after the tragic news, George recalled how he’d implored Freeda to get an education before putting her boxing gloves on. “Well, she brought the bacon home,” he added (via CNN), referring to both the degree she earned and the two children (and three grandchildren) she had. “She’s with her maker now,” he concluded. “Just 1 more day I wanted okay 1 more year aw 1 more decade.”
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