Tyson comments on Bryant

Former boxing champion Mike Tyson, who served three years in prison on a rape conviction, says he empathizes with basketball star Kobe Bryant and the sexual assault charges faced by the Los Angeles Laker guard.

“I’ve been in an ordeal like him, and I know how easy it is for a young man to be a big shot, a big star in America’s eyes and then get in another arena and he’s nobody. That means the judicial arena,” Tyson, 37, said in an interview airing Monday on “Access Hollywood.”

The one-time heavyweight champion, convicted of rape in 1992 and suspended from professional boxing for biting the ears of Evander Holyfield during a 1997 bout, said he wished Bryant “the best” and urged the NBA star to stay close to his family.

Bryant, 24, has been charged with Class 3 sexual assault, the equivalent of rape under Colorado law, stemming from allegations made by a 19-year-old Colorado woman who worked as a concierge at a resort he visited in June. The athlete has denied he raped the woman, insisting their encounter was consensual and that his only wrongdoing was adultery.