Marky Mark was on Anderson Cooper’s talk show recently for a special on gang violence. He talked in few details about his tumultuous past and involvement in gang activity as a kid. He now involves himself in youth outreach programs to help prevent others from making the same mistakes.
As I was watching The Fighter this weekend, I was reminded of the interview, and decided to find out what it was that he did, and perhaps get some insight into why he is such a bad-ass.
I didn’t have to go any further than Wikipedia for this one, so I won’t rehash all the details here, but he was in a gang and participated in several racial hate crimes; one so bad as to be ruled attempted murder. Pretty heavy stuff. Fortunately, through his faith, and involvement in the Catholic Church he was able to turn his life around… but I still wouldn’t want to piss him off.