The Mike Tyson Super Bowl ad is a public health failure

Lessons learned from the 2026 Super Bowl ad lineup: Online gambling is super cool, just ask Kendall Jenner, and Coinbase is actually fun — are you sure you didn’t like the Rickroll-esque karaoke spot? Beloved ’90s celebs, de-aged to look like 20-somethings again, just absolutely love Dunkin’ Donuts coffee, so you should drink it, too. Oh, also, being fat makes you want to kill yourself. 

It was a stark black-and-white ad, dramatically framed to center the tattooed face of former boxing titan Mike Tyson. Tyson kicks off the ad by telling us that his sister Denise “died of obesity” at just 25 years old. It was a heart attack, he adds. Dramatic cut to his clasped hands. “I was so fat and nasty,” Tyson tells the camera, his sister’s story just teeing up his own message. “I would eat anything. I was like 345 pounds.” The music swells. “I had so much self-hate when I was like that. I just wanted to kill myself.” He bites into a carrot, then an apple. He tells Americans, likely half-listening as they enjoy some decadent dips and spicy wings with their loved ones, that we are still a bunch of obese, “fudgy” people despite being the most powerful country in the world. 

Did you know powerful people are all fit and skinny, and that our physical appearance makes our country’s actions morally defensible? Wait, is that not the point? What is the point? “Process food kills,” the screen reads. Oh.