I guess it really started when I was about 16.
A friend and I joined the Job Corps program, where I first learned to box.
We went to Grants Pass, Oregon, and worked up in those hills for six months.
I cried because it was so tough.
So, I said to myself, George, you gotta just keep yourself busy.
You gotta keep going.
After that, boxing became the first time in my life I had true goals for myself.
I wanted an Olympic gold medal and I got it.
I walked around with that medal hanging around my neck for months and totally wore the color off it.
It was like proof I had become something.
Never lost a match.
Heavyweight champion of the world!
But then came Africa.
October, 30, 1974.
The Rumble in the Jungle.
I lost the fight.
For me, it was utter devastation.
How could I do this?
How could that happen to me?
I didn’t just lose the title; I felt I lost part of myself.
Estimated net worth: $300 million.
I left boxing a few years later and became an evangelist.
I had to reacquaint myself with how to be a regular person.
I thought people would only love you if you had Lincoln Continental cars and custom suits.
But after about three years in retirement, I didn’t have any of that.
I was just a big guy.
For 10 years, I was an outcast.
I didn’t look like a champ.
People didn’t want me in their homes because all I talked about was religion.
The only way to keep friends was by going fishing with them and cooking it up.
I learned to barbecue.
Oh, they’d lick their fingers and ask for some more.
People liked me again, not for George Foreman stuff but for the food I was making.
Ten years out of boxing, and I decided to give it one more shot.
I made a comeback and not only recaptured the heavyweight titlea miraclebut I became the toast of Madison Avenue.
I did commercials for McDonald’s, RC Cola, Doritos, Meineke.
Why don’t you do your own product?
I started using it.
