In 1986, when Muhammad Ali Jr. was 14 years old, his father, the greatest boxer alive, picked up the teen for a visit.
“We got in the car, and I said I needed to stop for something to eat,” Ali Jr. recalls. “By the time I came back out, he was gone.”
Ali Jr. called his father’s new wife, Lonnie, and said, “Daddy left me up here. I don’t know why he left me.” She said she’d tell him as soon as he arrived home.
“He turned the car around and came back to pick me up,” Ali Jr. says. “I said, ‘Daddy, why did you leave me?’ He said, ‘I kind of forgot you were in the car.’ ”
Ali Jr. remembers it sadly, the moment when his dad’s Parkinson’s became apparent.
“That was the first time I actually realized something was wrong with him,” he said.
Now 41, nearly destitute and living in the dangerous Chicago neighborhood of West Englewood, Ali Jr. fears his father has now forgotten him for good — and the boxing great’s wife, Lonnie, is keeping him from even saying a proper goodbye.
“If I saw my father right now, I’d say I love you, I miss you, and I want you to see your grandkids,” says Muhammad Jr., who lives in a two-bedroom hovel he shares with his wife, Shaakira, and two children, Ameera, 6, and Shakera, 5.
“I wished before my dad got really sick, I could have had that father-son relationship, but that’s impossible now. I wish I could have made up for lost time. But it doesn’t break my heart anymore. It’s been broken so many times I’m used to it by now.”
Muhammad Jr. was born in 1972 in Philadelphia to Ali, then 30, and actress Belinda Boyd, who was 17. Muhammad Jr. can’t remember ever enjoying a family meal together. Mostly, his grandparents raised him, as his father was busy boxing and his mom was acting in films.
He grew up with three sisters — Maryum and twins Jamillah and Rasheda — but when they were infants, Ali began an affair with Veronica Porsche, who became his second wife in 1977.
The kids still saw their dad, and Junior fondly remembers those days as an extended family.
“My father used to do magic tricks. He’d have a handkerchief that he’d make into a cane; he’d then make it disappear. His card tricks were really good. He was such a comical person. My father liked to wear masks and scare people. He liked to have people on the edge of their seats.
“We used to go to Pennsylvania where he had a training camp, and he’d do tricks on stage. We all went. It was all the family, including my stepsisters Leila and Hana. We’d get on the Bluebird Winnebago bus and go up to see him,” Muhammad Jr. says.
“We stayed in log cabins, ride horses, watch him train, jump ropes and eat all the time as a family. He had a great cook.
“But I never went to any boxing matches apart from one when he fought Leon Spinks, and I just remember he kept on smiling even though he was getting hit a lot.
“He never wanted me to be a fighter. He said, ‘Don’t get into it if you don’t know what you’re doing, as it’s dangerous.’
“I used to see him all the time when I was a child. He made sure he was there, would get all the siblings together, and never kept us a secret from each other. I was proud of my daddy. Fame and fortune meant nothing, I just saw him as my daddy.”
But being Muhammad Ali Jr. had its pitfalls. Although his dad was conquering the world for a third time in 1978, his son was battling on the playground.
“You may think having Muhammad Ali as your dad is great, but I had problems. People wanted to pick fights. School was hell. They wanted to see if I was like my father. I’d get bullied all the time. Girls would only get with me because of my father, not because of me. Nothing was as it seemed. I didn’t know who really loved me. People just used me so they could get a glimpse of my dad. Some people didn’t like it that my dad was black or didn’t go to war. We had to fight all his battles.
“It meant my grandparents sheltered me a lot. Dad didn’t know, as he wasn’t around every day. I felt in some ways like I never had a childhood.
“I’d say my father was good and bad. The reason I say that is because my father never really spent time with me. Whenever we had time, he spent it with his daughters rather than me. Even in the only picture I have of all the family together, they’re all wrapped close, and I’m far out to the left. I felt like the outcast. I still do,” Muhammad Jr. sobs.
