Can Floyd Mayweather read?

It is impossible to escape unwarranted rumors, accusations, and trolling if you are a world-class athlete of Floyd Maywether's stature. 'Money' has carved his place as one of the greatest boxers in history and has built a massive fortune in doing so.

However, he has been mercilessly trolled for apparently being illiterate. While being illiterate would make his accomplishments even more noteworthy, let's find out if the rumors are true.

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Can Floyd Mayweather read?

Floyd Mayweather has been accused of being illiterate multiple times. Despite it becoming a regular insult to be used against the undefeated boxing legend, Mayweather is certainly capable of reading.

The rumors have stemmed from a feud Mayweather had with American rapper 50 Cent. The two men were once friends, though things appeared to have soured over time. 50 Cent began tormenting Mayweather mercilessly, offering him $750,000 to a charity of Mayweather’s choice if he read a page from a Harry Potter book and posted it to his Instagram account.

Mayweather did not respond, which prompted further taunting from the American rapper. In an appearance on the Jimmy Kimmel Show, 50 Cent challenged Mayweather to attempt to read a page from the children's book 'The Cat in the Hat'. Mayweather replied with the following Twitter post:

Read this $72,276,000.00. God bless. pic.twitter.com/dpwE3X7eLR

— Floyd Mayweather (@FloydMayweather) August 23, 2014

Another member of the American hip-hop community, Charlamagne Tha God, continued the rumors of Mayweather's illiteracy by releasing supposedly unedited footage of Mayweather tripping over his words in a radio drop.

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Mayweather sets the record straight

However, Mayweather has since said that the audio footage was clearly edited to make him look bad. In a 2014 interview with LAD Bible, Mayweather cleared up what had truly occurred. He said:

“I don’t get paid to read radio drops. I’m capable of having a bad day. I’m not perfect. You know as well as I know, they edited the tape how they wanted to do it. Making fun of a person because they can’t read is not funny. It’s tragic. If I really couldn’t read, it would make my accomplishments that much more amazing.”

Whilst there were rumors of a potential boxing matchup between 50 Cent and Floyd Mayweather, 50 Cent would later state:

"The fight is off because Floyd cant read 2 paragraphs of my New York Times best seller (Hustle Harder Hustle Smarter) on IG live."