This is the Reference Page for Mr. T’s Wikipedia page. It repeatedly cites one book, Mr. T’s autobiography, written by Mr. T. The other citations also only cite the same book. This is quite common.
Being an intellectual heavyweight I recently sat down with a tall glass of Mountain Dew (Code Red) and proceeded to read Mr. T’s entire Wikipedia page.
It turns out the page, exclusively sourced from Mr. T’s autobiography, is filled with ludicrous Chuck Norris Joke style claims which would appear to strain credulity.
It would appear likely that Mr. T simply constructed a cult of personality for himself by stretching the truth, or just making stuff up. Let’s take a look at a few of these claims, taken from the Wiki page, and then I’ll explain why it is problematic that they should be taken as fact.
1. While growing up, Mr. T regularly witnessed murder, rape, and other crimes, but attributes his survival and later success to his will to do well and his mother’s love. Mr. T grew up in the projects of Chicago. I guess it depends on what you mean by “regularly”, but that’s an awful lot of rape and murder, even by Southside project standards.
2. Mr. T attended Dunbar Vocational High School, where he played football, wrestled, and studied martial arts. – This isn’t one of the more ludicrous claims, but Mr. T would have been in high school in the late 1960’s. Did they teach martial arts in high school at that time?
3. Mr. T then joined the Army, and in a cycle of six thousand troops he was elected “Top Trainee of the Cycle” and was also promoted to squad leader. This is where we start to verge on Paul Bunyan territory. I’m guessing it would be impossible to fact check this claim, outside of asking Mr. T about it.
4. In July 1976 his platoon sergeant punished him by giving him the detail of chopping down trees during training camp, but did not tell him how many trees, so Mr. T single-handedly chopped down over 70 trees from 6:30–10:00 a.m., when a shocked major superseded the sergeant’s orders. I’d have to discuss this with some of those lumberjack competition guys, but it seems impossible. I guess it would depend on the size of the trees. Maybe they were willows.
5. After his discharge, he tried out for the Green Bay Packers, but failed to make the team due to a knee injury. Or perhaps due to sucking and football and creeping everybody out.
6. During his bouncing days, he was in over 200 fights and was sued a number of times, but won each case.
7. He eventually parlayed his job as a bouncer into a career as a bodyguard. During these years he protected, among others, sixteen prostitutes, nine welfare recipients, five preachers, eight bankers, ten school teachers, and four store owners. Why would a welfare recipient need a bodyguard?
8. As his reputation improved, however, he was contracted to guard, among others, seven clothes designers, five models, seven judges, three politicians, six athletes and forty-two millionaires. He protected well-known personalities such as Muhammed Ali, Steve McQueen, Michael Jackson, Leon Spinks, Joe Frazier and Diana Ross. He did hang out with Muhammad Ali, and posed for some photos with Michael Jackson, although there is no evidence he was any of these peoples bodyguards, outside of his own statements.
9. Mr. T attracted strange offers and was frequently approached with odd commissions, which included assassination, tracking runaway teenagers, locating missing persons, and large firms asking him to collect past-due payments by force. Mr. T was once anonymously offered $75,000 to assassinate a target and received in the mail a file of the hit and an advance of $5,000, but he refused it. If you’re going to hire someone to pull off an assassination, make sure it is one of the most recognizable people in the country.
10. Mr. T’s gold jewelry was worth about $300,000 at the time and took him about an hour to put on. Wearing the jewelry was just a poor choice then.
11. He spent even more time cleaning it with an ultra-sonic cleaner.
12. Occasionally, he slept with the heavy neck chains and bracelets on, “to see how my ancestors, who were slaves, felt.”
That last remark on his race is quite strange, as is Mr. T’s claim that his trademark mohawk is a tribute to his African heritage:
13. While reading National Geographic, Mr. T first noticed the unusual hairstyle for which he is now famous, on a Mandinka warrior.
I did some minimal research on the Mandinka people, and, they don’t have hair like that. Also, none of their names are Mr. or T.
Mr. T has claimed to have many of these types of “awakenings”, in fact, he is a born-again Christian, and hence:
14. He stopped wearing virtually all his gold after helping with the cleanup after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. He said, “As a Christian, when I saw other people lose their lives and lose their land and property… I felt that it would be a sin before God for me to continue wearing my gold. I felt it would be insensitive and disrespectful to the people who lost everything, so I stopped wearing my gold.”
Here’s the thing. All of these “facts” are based on Mr. T’s autobiography entitled Mr. T: The Man with the Gold.
Wikipedia is just repeating Mr. T’s own claims, which were not verified by a third party.
As terrible as it is to say, I now have serious doubt as to whether Mr. T actually ever had cancer, as people will tell you if you bring up how fucking retarded the Mr. T persona is.
“Hey, you know who was super corny in the 80’s, Yakov Smirnoff.”
“Bro, that guy had cancer.”
“Oh, right, I take back everything I said about anything that means anything.”
Mr. T seems to change his tune quite often, and this cancer narrative seems very convenient for him.
If anyone can verify that he did indeed have the cancer, outside of his own statements, please send the info to Matt@MattRalston.net.
None of his claims are independently sourced.
I find Mr. T’s Wiki page illustrates a serious issue this country has in discerning fact from fiction. Donald Trump’s Wiki page is filled with similarly dubious facts, such as that he is a multi billionaire or only sleeps 3 hours a night.
In fact, Mr. T and Donald Trump both have backgrounds in reality television.
I think that the average person would never really think to just make up a bunch of stuff in the name of self-promotion, so therefore these same people are incredibly gullible when someone else does.
On one hand, Mr. T procured himself an acting career, and that’s totally harmless. On the other hand, Donald Trump became the President and people still believe most of his claims, including his wealth, even though he refuses to release his tax returns which would no doubt show that he is in a mountain of debt.
Why do they believe this? Because he said it. Wikipedia is becoming a dangerous self-referential cesspool of half truths. If you follow the trail of information, all of the sources, on a myriad of topics, often all lead back to one unverified claim.
Someone needs to write a definitive, easy to digest guide on how to spot a sociopath.
Hopefully it’s not edited on Wikipedia.