Boxer Yusaf Mack Recants Story of Being Drugged Before Making Porn Video

What started as a hushed secret among the close-knit Philadelphia boxing community exploded into a viral story for former light heavyweight contender Yusaf Mack.

Last week, Mack was featured on the front page of the Philadelphia Daily News in a story by Jenice Armstrong wherein Mack claimed he was drugged and coerced into making a gay porn video.

This week, Mack (31-8-2, 17 KOs) recanted the story after DawgPound USA, the company that marketed the video on its website, issued the following statement:

“DawgPoundUSA.com is a reputable company which has produced high quality videos of men-of-color since 2002. At no time have we ever coerced or drugged any of our models. The claims made by Mr. Mack are false, slanderous, and vehemently denied on our part. We intend to take all legal steps necessary to protect our good name and reputation against these patently false and preposterous claims.”

Mack admitted that the “Holiday Hump’n” video, in which he appears in a threesome with two other men, was not made under any foreign influence.

In his original story, Mack said he was short on money in June when he decided to go to the Bronx to shoot a porn scene, arranged by someone he met on Facebook earlier in the year. After arriving at the apartment complex where the filming would take place, Armstrong wrote, Mack noticed numerous naked women walking around.

“I think, ‘It’s about to go down.’ I needed a drink or something,” Mack said in the Daily News’ Oct. 27 story. “They gave me a pill and a shot of vodka. I took the pill down with the vodka.”

According to Mack, the only thing he remembers after that is waking up on a train in Philadelphia’s 30th Street Station with $4,500 cash in his pocket. A father of 10 children who is engaged to be married, Mack maintained “that he’s strictly heterosexual and that the whole thing is all a big mistake,” Armstrong wrote.

Mack told Armstrong that he didn’t become aware of the video until Oct. 16, “when he was on his way to his grandmother’s Gold Coast Lounge, at 40th Street and Lancaster Avenue, and noticed people behaving strangely toward him. I’m wondering why everybody is walking past me and not speaking to me.”

Mack this week released a statement on TheShadeRoom.com, through Anthony Cherry, a Los Angeles-based public-relations manager who has offered to represent Mack.

A portion of Mack’s statement reads: “This is an issued public apology from my heart. I want to address a few situations with the first being the false claims I made about being drugged during the Dog Pound adult film. I have never spoke negatively about the company that produced the film although the claim to have been given a drug by someone during set was a lie. I was completely aware and fully conscious during the film ... I did participate in the adult film because at the time I needed money but also because I am a bisexual man. Meaning I enjoy safely being intimate with whomever I choose. Lastly I would like to address the reason I lied. My life was completely destroyed once it had been outed that I participated in a gay film. I selfishly tried to cover the truth and remain in denial, rather than accept the fact that I was leading a double life secretly.”

In a follow-up story in the Daily News on Monday, Mack told Armstrong “that he needed the money. Times were hard. I just want people to know I did it because I had to take care of my children ... It was better than going out and robbing somebody.”

In the story, Armstrong wrote, “One relative was so disgusted that he told Mack to kill himself. Mack's children -- the ones old enough to understand -- have been understandably upset, and his fiancee walked out on him.”

“She couldn't handle it,” Mack is quoted as saying. “I was up front with her ... she couldn't handle it. I don't even want her back. If you weren't there for me through this time, I don't need you.”

Mack told Armstrong, “I was ashamed. I'm sorry for lying.”