Rayna Tyson: Mike Tyson’s Child, Filmmaker and Voice for Change

Most people first hear the name Rayna Tyson in the same sentence as their father, Mike Tyson, one of the most famous boxers who ever lived. Yet the person behind the name has spent their adult life building something of their own, far from the boxing ring. Among the many celebrity stories that begin with a famous parent, this one is different, because it is about a filmmaker who works behind the camera, an activist who speaks plainly about who they are, and a private person who has never tried to trade on a famous surname.

Rayna Tyson was born on 14 February 1996, the second child of heavyweight champion Mike Tyson and his second wife, Dr Monica Turner. Today they are known as Ramsey Tyson, a nonbinary and transmasculine filmmaker who uses they/them pronouns. The name change is part of the story, not a footnote to it, and this article uses both names the way the public record does: Rayna Tyson for the name they were born with, and Ramsey Tyson for the name they live by now.

This article looks at what is actually known about Rayna Tyson, from their childhood in a famous family to film school in New York, their work on two very different films, their public coming out in 2020, and the quieter life they have kept since. Where sources disagree, the disagreement is noted, because a careful account should say so rather than pick a side without proof.

Rayna Tyson Quick Facts

• Birth name: Rayna Tyson
• Known as now: Ramsey Tyson
• Born: 14 February 1996, United States
• Age: 30 years old in 2026
• Known for: Filmmaker; child of former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson
• Parents: Mike Tyson and Dr Monica Turner (paediatrician, Tyson’s second wife)
• Younger brother: Amir Tyson, born 1997
• Education: Tisch School of the Arts, New York University — film production, graduated 2018
• Film work: Research intern on The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson (2017); staff assistant on Joker (2019)
• Identity: Nonbinary and transmasculine; uses they/them pronouns
• Came out publicly: November 2020, in an interview with Them
• Activism: LGBTQ+ rights, trans visibility, education on gender identity
• Public profile: Very private; private Instagram, few public appearances

Who Is Rayna Tyson?

Rayna Tyson is the child of former world heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson and paediatrician Dr Monica Turner. They are the second of Tyson’s seven children, and the older of the two children he had with Turner, the other being their younger brother Amir. While their father built his name in the ring, Rayna Tyson chose a different craft altogether: film.

Their work in film has been behind the scenes rather than in front of a camera. As a student, Rayna Tyson worked as a research intern on The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson, a documentary about a Black transgender activist whose death in 1992 remains unsolved. After graduating, they worked as a staff assistant on Joker (2019), the film starring Joaquin Phoenix that went on to win Academy Awards. Those two credits say a lot about the kind of filmmaker they want to be: one drawn to stories about people on the margins, and to work that has something to say.

Rayna Tyson is also known as a voice for LGBTQ+ rights. In November 2020 they spoke publicly for the first time about being nonbinary and transmasculine, and about changing their name to Ramsey. The interview was honest about how hard that honesty can be, even inside a famous family, and it made them one of the more visible young trans voices connected to the world of sport and entertainment. Yet they have never chased celebrity. Their public appearances are rare, their social media is private, and the life they have built is deliberately quieter than the one they were born into.

Early Life and Family

Rayna Tyson was born on 14 February 1996, in the United States. Their father, Mike Tyson, was by then one of the most recognisable athletes on the planet, a former undisputed heavyweight champion whose name was known far beyond boxing. Their mother, Dr Monica Turner, was a paediatrician, and she and Tyson had begun their relationship before Rayna was born, marrying about a year later in an intimate Muslim ceremony.

They grew up largely in Bethesda, Maryland, alongside their younger brother Amir, who was born in 1997. Bethesda, a suburb of Washington, D.C., was a long way from the noise of their father’s world, and by most accounts their childhood was kept as ordinary as a famous family allows. Mike Tyson’s household was a large one. He has seven children with four different women, and Rayna’s siblings include their older half-sister Miki, their brother Amir, and younger half-siblings Miguel, Milan and Morocco, as well as Exodus, their half-sister who died in a tragic accident at the age of four in 2009.

One detail worth noting is that Rayna Tyson’s birthplace is not settled in the public record. Some profiles say they were born and raised in Bethesda, Maryland. Others give no birthplace at all, saying only that they were born in the United States. This article gives both positions rather than choosing between them, because the honest answer is that the place of birth has not been confirmed by a major outlet.

What is clear is that Rayna Tyson grew up in a family where fame was the background, not the goal. Their mother worked as a doctor, their father was often away, and their parents’ marriage ended while they were still young. By the time they reached their teens, they were already turning towards the arts, and towards stories, as the thing that interested them most.

Studying Film at NYU Tisch

As a teenager, Rayna Tyson decided that film was what they wanted to do. They applied to the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, one of the best-known film schools in the world, and were accepted to study film production. Tisch has trained generations of directors, writers and producers, and for a young person serious about making films, it was the obvious place to go.

Their years at Tisch shaped the filmmaker they would become. Rayna Tyson learned to write, shoot and edit, and to think about what makes a story worth telling. The programme put them in rooms with other young filmmakers and gave them the chance to work on real projects while still a student. It was during those years that they took on their first notable film job, as a research intern on a documentary that would become one of the most talked-about independent films of its year.

Rayna Tyson graduated from NYU in 2018 with a degree in film production. The graduation marked the end of their formal education and the start of a working life in film. Unlike many children of famous parents, they did not step straight into a public career. They went to work on film sets, in the crew, doing the unglamorous jobs that keep a production running, and they have stayed close to that behind-the-scenes world ever since.

Film Work: Marsha P. Johnson and Joker

Rayna Tyson’s first film credit came while they were still a student. They worked as a research intern on The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson, a 2017 documentary directed by David France. The film looked into the life and mysterious death of Marsha P. Johnson, a Black transgender activist who was a central figure in the gay liberation movement and the Stonewall uprising. Johnson’s body was found in the Hudson River in 1992, and the official ruling of suicide has long been disputed by those who knew her.

Working as a research intern meant digging into archives, tracking down people who knew Johnson, and helping to build the factual spine of the film. It was the kind of job that teaches a young filmmaker how a documentary is really made, and it suited the interests Rayna Tyson would keep returning to: stories about LGBTQ+ people, about history that has been overlooked, and about the gap between the official record and what people actually remember. The film was widely praised when it was released, and it remains the most substantial early credit on their record.

After graduation, Rayna Tyson joined the crew of Joker (2019), the film directed by Todd Phillips and starring Joaquin Phoenix as Arthur Fleck. Their role was as a staff assistant, part of the production team that keeps a large film set working day to day. Joker became a huge critical and commercial success, winning two Academy Awards, including Best Actor for Phoenix, and taking more than a billion dollars at the box office. For a young filmmaker, having that title on a CV is no small thing.

It is worth being precise about what those credits mean. Some profiles describe Rayna Tyson as an actor with two major film credits, but their work on both films was behind the camera, as a researcher and as a crew assistant, not as a performer. The “actor” label appears to have travelled from one biography site to another without anyone checking it against the actual credits. This article describes the work as it was: crew work on two serious films, and a sign of a filmmaker building a career from the ground up.

From Rayna to Ramsey: Coming Out in 2020

The part of the story that most people know best began in November 2020, when Rayna Tyson spoke to Them, the LGBTQ+ magazine, about their identity. In that interview they said plainly that they are a nonbinary person who had socially transitioned among their friends and started a medical transition, and that they now go by the name Ramsey. It was the first time they had spoken publicly about who they are, and it was a deliberate, thoughtful choice.

The interview was honest about the difficulty of that honesty. Rayna Tyson told Them that they and their father were not “super close”, and that they had not expected him to be understanding at first. They also said that their father had sometimes referred to them as his “daughter” in public, including in the same interview, and that being misgendered by the media, and by people they love, was hard. “It’s always a little weird to be misgendered, let alone in Complex,” they said, talking about how the press covered them, “I think it’s much more important to listen to trans people.”

That sentence captures something important about who Rayna Tyson is. They did not come out with anger or with a demand. They came out by asking people to listen, and by explaining, patiently, what their life is actually like. The name Ramsey is the name they chose for themselves, and it is the name used in the public record now. This article keeps the name Rayna Tyson as its keyword, because that is the name readers search for, but it uses Ramsey, and they/them pronouns, everywhere else, because that is who they are.

The Boosie Badazz Moment

The interview with Them came about because of a moment that had played out in public a few weeks earlier. In 2020, rapper Boosie Badazz made disparaging comments about Zaya, the transgender daughter of former basketball star Dwyane Wade and actress Gabrielle Union. The comments drew wide criticism, and Mike Tyson invited Boosie onto his podcast, Hot Boxin’ with Mike Tyson, in October 2020.

Before the episode was recorded, Tyson’s wife, Lakiha Spicer, asked Rayna Tyson whether Boosie should be removed from the line-up. Rayna said no. They felt it was “a good opportunity to educate someone about trans issues”, and they wanted the conversation to happen rather than be cancelled. Their father agreed, and the episode went ahead, with Tyson pressing Boosie on camera about why he felt entitled to comment on someone else’s life. “What happened to you that you think that you’re somebody that can comment on somebody’s life?” Tyson asked him.

After the podcast, Rayna Tyson spoke to Boosie themselves, explaining facts about trans children and the difference between sexuality and gender identity. “I ended up having to explain to him, even, that sexuality and gender are two different things, and he was blown away by that,” they told Them. Tyson later said publicly that he had once held the same views as Boosie, telling TMZ that he was “Boosie at one time”, and that his child had educated him. “It’s very sweet to say that I inspired him in some way,” Rayna Tyson said of their father, and the moment became the most widely reported thing about them: a young person who changed their famous father’s mind, and tried to change a stranger’s too.

The Relationship with Mike Tyson

Rayna Tyson’s relationship with their father is one of the most asked-about parts of their story, and it is also one of the least simple. Mike Tyson is a figure of enormous fame and enormous contradiction: the youngest heavyweight champion in history, a man who spent years in prison, and a public figure who has spent his later life trying to rebuild himself in public. His children have grown up in the shadow of all of that, and Rayna is no exception.

In the Them interview, Rayna Tyson was clear that they and their father were not “super close”, and that they had not expected him to understand their identity at first. They also said he did not mean any harm when he got their pronouns or their name wrong. “He didn’t mean it maliciously,” they said, in the way of someone who knows the person behind the famous name and is making allowances for him. That balance, between honesty and loyalty, runs through everything they have said about him in public.

Since that interview, Tyson has spoken about Rayna Tyson with pride, and has praised them for standing up to Boosie and for teaching him. The relationship seems to have grown from that moment, even if it is still not a close one in the ordinary sense. For a father and child who have both lived large parts of their lives in public, that is perhaps as much as can be said with confidence. The rest is private, and this article does not dress up the gaps as facts.

Activism and a Public Voice

Beyond the film work, Rayna Tyson is known as an activist for LGBTQ+ rights. They have used their platform, such as it is, to speak about trans visibility, about the difference between gender and sexuality, and about the need to listen to trans people rather than talk over them. Their work on The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson and their intervention in the Boosie episode point in the same direction: a belief that stories, and conversations, can change minds.

That activism is not a brand or a business. Rayna Tyson has not built a public career out of it, and they have not turned themselves into a professional commentator. Their advocacy has been quiet, specific and personal: a conversation with a rapper, an interview with a magazine, work on a documentary about a woman who died before anyone listened to her. It is activism done the way they do film, from behind the scenes and in the service of someone else’s story.

It is also worth saying that their public voice is a recent thing. For most of their twenties, Rayna Tyson stayed out of the public eye, and they still do for the most part. They keep their Instagram private, they give few interviews, and they do not appear at premieres or on red carpets. The moments when they have spoken, they have spoken because something mattered enough to say it out loud, not because they were looking for attention.

Life Today

As of 2026, Rayna Tyson is 30 years old and living a private life, as far as the public record shows. They are still known as Ramsey Tyson in the press and in the film world, and their pronouns are they/them. There is no public record of a partner, a marriage or children, and no confirmed detail about where they live now or what they are working on next. That is not a gap waiting to be filled with rumour. It is the life they have chosen, and it has held for years.

Their younger brother Amir, meanwhile, has built a more public profile of his own, as an entrepreneur who founded the clothing brand Debonair Attire and as a sports commentator. The contrast between the siblings is a useful one: Amir has stepped towards the public world their father occupies, while Rayna Tyson has stepped away from it, towards film sets and private life. Both are their own choices, and neither needs the other’s approval.

The family around them has stayed in the public eye. Mike Tyson has kept working, appearing in films, podcasts and, in late 2024, a much-publicised return to the ring against Jake Paul. His seven children have grown up and scattered into their own lives, and Rayna Tyson is the one who has kept the greatest distance from the cameras. That distance is itself a kind of statement. They were born into one of the most famous families in sport, tried its world for a while, and decided that the work they wanted to do was quieter than that.

Common Confusions About Rayna Tyson

Because Rayna Tyson keeps such a low profile, and because so much of what is written about them comes from low-quality biography sites that copy each other, several errors and mix-ups keep appearing online. The most common ones are worth clearing up.

What is their name: Rayna or Ramsey? Both, in different senses. They were born Rayna Tyson, and that is the name most readers search for. They now go by Ramsey Tyson, the name they chose for themselves when they came out as nonbinary and transmasculine in 2020. Some sites get this backwards, listing “Rayna Tyson (formerly Ramsey Tyson)” or even claiming they were born Ramsey. That is wrong. The name at birth was Rayna, and the name now is Ramsey.

Are they an actor? Not in the usual sense. Some profiles call Rayna Tyson an actor with two major film credits, The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson and Joker, but their work on those films was behind the camera: a research intern on the first, a staff assistant on the second. There is no reliable record of them acting in either film, and the “actor” label should be treated as an error that has been copied from site to site.

Where were they born? Some profiles say Bethesda, Maryland, where they were raised with their brother Amir. Others say only that they were born in the United States, with no place given. The birthplace has not been confirmed by a major outlet, so the honest position is that it is reported, not settled.

How old are they? They were born on 14 February 1996, which makes them 30 years old in 2026. That date is consistent across the reliable sources, and it is one of the few hard facts about them that is not disputed.

When did they come out? In November 2020, in an interview with Them. Some sites date the interview to 2020 without a month, and a few wrongly suggest an earlier date, but the Them interview in November 2020 is the public coming out that the record supports.

What is their net worth? Figures are quoted online, and none of them comes from a credible financial source. Rayna Tyson has not publicly stated their net worth, and no figure should be quoted as fact.

How many children does Mike Tyson have? Seven: Miki, Ramsey, Amir, Miguel, Exodus, Milan and Morocco. Exodus died in 2009 at the age of four. Some profiles list only six living children, which is accurate as a count of the living, but the total is seven.

When was their oldest sister Miki born? Sources disagree. Some give 31 July 1990, others give 14 February 1991. The two dates cannot both be right, and neither has been confirmed by an official record, so the honest position is that the date is disputed.

Frequently Asked Questions About Rayna Tyson

Who is Rayna Tyson?

Rayna Tyson is the child of former heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson and paediatrician Dr Monica Turner, born on 14 February 1996. They are a filmmaker and LGBTQ+ activist who now goes by the name Ramsey Tyson and uses they/them pronouns.

Why are they now called Ramsey Tyson?

They changed their name when they came out as nonbinary and transmasculine in a November 2020 interview with Them. Ramsey is the name they chose for themselves, and it is the name used in the public record now. Rayna is the name they were born with and the name most readers search for.

How old is Rayna Tyson?

They were born on 14 February 1996, which makes them 30 years old in 2026. The birth date is one of the few facts about them that is consistent across the reliable sources.

What films has Rayna Tyson worked on?

They worked as a research intern on the documentary The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson (2017) while studying at NYU, and as a staff assistant on Joker (2019) after graduating. Both roles were behind the camera, not acting roles.

Where did Rayna Tyson study?

They studied film production at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University and graduated in 2018. Tisch is one of the best-known film schools in the world, and their time there shaped the filmmaker they became.

What happened with Boosie Badazz?

In October 2020, rapper Boosie Badazz appeared on Mike Tyson’s podcast after making disparaging comments about Dwyane Wade’s transgender daughter, Zaya. Rayna Tyson advised against cancelling the appearance, saying it was a chance to educate, and afterwards spoke to Boosie themselves about trans children and the difference between gender and sexuality. Tyson later said his child had educated him too.

Who are Rayna Tyson’s parents and siblings?

Their parents are Mike Tyson and Dr Monica Turner, Tyson’s second wife. Their younger brother is Amir Tyson, born in 1997. Their half-siblings include Miki, Miguel, Milan and Morocco, and Exodus, who died in 2009 at the age of four.

Conclusion

Rayna Tyson was born into one of the most famous families in sport, and they chose a life that looks nothing like it. They went to film school, worked on a documentary about a forgotten activist and on one of the biggest films of its year, and then stepped back from the public eye to do the work they cared about. When they came out in 2020, they did it plainly and patiently, asking people to listen, and they changed their father’s mind in the process.

That is a harder thing to do than it looks. The children of famous people usually find the spotlight difficult to leave, because it is the only world they have known. Rayna Tyson left it early, kept their life private, and spoke only when something mattered enough to say out loud. The name on the birth certificate is Rayna Tyson, the name they live by is Ramsey Tyson, and the person behind both names is a filmmaker who would rather tell someone else’s story than their own. For readers who want to check the basic facts about their father and his long career in boxing, a general reference is a good place to start.