Robin Givens's mother, Ruth Roper, had a relationship with Dave Winfield in the early 1980s, a few years before her daughter became a TV star (and married Mike Tyson).
After the relationship ended in 1985, she sued Yankees star Dave Winfield, accusing him of giving her herpes! Born Ruth Newby in Kentucky in 1946, Ruth moved to New York City after her parents divorced, but returned to Lexington as a teenager to visit her father. There she met Reuben Givens, a high school basketball star. Ruth stayed with her father to be closer to Reuben, and they got married on June 6, 1964 -- and Ruth gave birth 5 1/2 months later to Robin. After a second baby, they divorced. Ruth was a single mother of two girls at age 20. Ruth returned to New York, living in the Bronx and working at Trans World Airlines, then became a travel agent. She married a businessman, Phil Roper, but the marriage was annulled after just a few weeks. Still, she would be known as Ruth Roper from then on.
Her business grew to computer consulting, and she worked hard to keep her two daughters in private school and to pursue high-paying careers. The younger sister, Stephanie, was a professional tennis player, while Robin wanted to be a doctor. Both eventually became actresses. Robin was 22 years old when she landed her breakthrough role as Darlene in Head of the Class in 1986. On May 31, 1988 -- a few months after Robin married Mike Tyson -- reports surfaced that her mother had reached an out-of-court settlement with Winfield, who is five years younger. She claimed the outfielder had given her "a sexually transmitted disease (believed to be herpes)," according to Peter Heller's Bad Intentions: The Mike Tyson Story. "The case ended when Roper and Winfield reached an out-of-court settlement, with no admission of guilt by Winfield, who, according to his attorney, categorically denied all of Roper's allegations. No more details are known, the court papers in the case having been sealed."
Winfield didn't admit to any wrongdoing. He wanted the case to go away as he was getting married to Tonya Faye; they're still together 37 years later! Tyson brought up the story in his autobiography, Undisputed Truth, claiming that Robin and Ruth were "confidence people, con artists, borderline prostitutes" on the prowl for famous athletes.
Robin Givens and her mom are a couple of... interesting people. Big time liars. For years Robin claimed to have gone to medical school and dropped out, then someone finally called the school who informed them she never even applied. She also claimed to be pregnant for long enough that Tyson's friend questioned her because she never started showing. Then, months later, she claimed a miscarriage. I believe the miscarriage happened, but it was luck that she got pregnant while claiming she already was.
The more you learn about those two. The worse they look.
Mike is an asshat also. My fave is that one day they got up together, ate breakfast. Tyson drove to his lawyers office to file for divorce. He told tyson to get to the bank to secure the $$. They told him Robin had closed them a few minutes before! So BOTH were planning on getting divorced while eating and kissing each other goodbye! She was just quicker!
Wow
I would insist that everyone, especially my doctors, refer to my condition as “Dave Winfield’s herpes.” If the pharmacist handed my a bottle that didn’t clearly state, “take X times a day for symptoms related to Dave Winfield’s herpes,” I’d get a job in my state’s offices in charge of pharmacist licenses just to ruin their career.
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