Cars and women
Mayweather wants to own both
Floyd Mayweather likes to own things, of that there is no doubt.
A Las Vegas automobile dealer recently disclosed that the boxer had purchased a total of 88 vehicles from his lot alone, including 14 Rolls Royces. They are Mayweather's trophies, symbols of his wealth and success.
He has said his view of buying cars is similar to how he looks at women.
"Even if you can't drive 10 cars at one time you got people that got 10 cars," Mayweather said in a Showtime documentary, 30 Days in May, a production that listed Mayweather as executive producer. "So, you're able to keep maintenance on 10 cars. So, I feel that as far as it comes to females, that same thing should apply. If you are able to take care of 20, then you should have 20."
Harris said Mayweather sees his relationship with women as "ownership." She claims Mayweather would pick out the clothes he wanted her to wear during their relationship, would routinely scan her cell phone to see who she was talking to and convinced her that he was "my only friend."
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"When I was in it I didn't realize that," Harris said. "I was like, 'Yeah, you are my only friend, we are a ride or die team,' and now I am like, no, I shouldn't have been isolated from my family and friends. (There were) the threats. After he would do something that would be inappropriate, feeling like he could make it up by buying me a pair of shoes and a handbag."
In June, Mayweather posted on Instagram that "if a female shows half her body, she is asking to be disrespected," as part of a rant about women's attire and what image it projected about them.
Shantel Jackson, in her lawsuit filed by noted attorney Gloria Allred, alleged that Mayweather kept her a virtual prisoner in his home and that she was only allowed to leave when accompanied by one of his employees. She also claimed to have had her cell phone monitored.
Shantel Jackson, right, filed a civil lawsuit against Floyd Mayweather.
(Photo: Getty Images)
In the lead-up to his fight against Marcos Maidana in September, Mayweather courted controversy by wading into the Ray Rice saga, later backtracking from his comments after they sparked a storm of negative reaction.
"I think there is a lot worse things that go on in other people's households, also," Mayweather said, insisting that the length of Rice's suspension should not have been increased once TMZ released video of him punching his partner in an elevator. "It's just not caught on video, if that's safe to say."
While Mayweather's remarks about Rice might be seen as risky, boxing is a sport in which being viewed as controversial is often no impediment to marketability.
Pay-per-view buys are the fight game's golden currency, and while the second Maidana fight came in at under one million buys, Mayweather is still by far the biggest draw in the sport, with the bargaining power that comes with it.
In the circle he inhabits, Mayweather's word is gospel. His every whim is catered to, and wherever he goes a fleet of shiny vehicles and a posse clad in TMT attire — The Money Team — follows.
Harris says she doesn't miss the glitz and glamour that came with the abuse.
"Yeah, I would like to have a private jet," she said. "I have only got one car but it fits all of us, it gets us around. It is a nice, safe vehicle, and I wouldn't trade going back into an abusive situation to be able to fly on private jets and run around with Hermes bags and nice shoes. I would rather be barefooted, on the beach, in a tent."
Harris says she first met Mayweather when she was 17, and still believes she knows him as well as anyone. Yet the one conundrum that she still wrestles with is how Mayweather reconciles his views about females and his treatment of them, with his role as a father to two daughters.
"When he is comparing women to cars … it is gross," said Harris, who has a bubbly 11-year-old daughter named Jirah with Mayweather. "I wonder when he lays his head on that pillow at night, does he ever think about 'you know I have got an 11-year-old beautiful little girl that is going to grow up and start dating men. Do I want her to start dating men like me?'
"I wonder, does he ever question himself?"