‘Prison rules’: When Boris Becker was threatened by inmate jailed for murder, who later fell to his knees and apologised

As he told Sky News in an interview recently: “Mine was a white-collar crime, but my next-door cell neighbour was a murderer, opposite my cell was a paedophile and on the right there were people smugglers and serious drug dealers.”

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Becker has been doing rounds of podcasts and offering long interviews off late as he promotes his autobiography. In one of these interviews, with the High Performance Podcast, Becker spoke about one inmate, who abused him and threatened him, but was later forced by Becker’s friends to apologise to the tennis ace. Becker says that the way the inmate apologised left him embarrassed.

Here’s Becker’s tale in his own words: “What you don’t do in prison is that you don’t go to another prisoner’s cell. You just don’t do that. Your cell is your safe place. This is where you have your belongings and your stuff. You’re not even allowed to go into somebody else’s cell when they’re inside. You do it eventually, but you’re not supposed to. And certainly, you don’t go into another man’s cell on your own.

“So one afternoon I had food on my plate. This guy called Zack was in another guy Ike’s cell. I felt a bit protective of Ike. At this point, I’ve known Ike over the last six months. So I asked Zack, ‘What are you doing in his cell?’ And Zack started barking at me, ‘Who are you?’ And I go, ‘My name is Boris. I’m in the cell next to Ike. And this is not your cell. What are you doing in his cell?’ Zack started being aggressive, swearing at me. He’s shouting, ‘I’m going to beat the s**t out of you. I’m going to kill you. I’m going to slice your throat. I’m going to do this and that. He’s a big, African guy.

“I’m thinking he’s about to hurt me. I was very scared. I walked backwards out of the cell as he started screaming at me. And very quickly—thankfully—because of the relationships I built with all the other prisoners on my floor, they came out of their cells. They started talking to Zach and they just told me to go back in my cell and that they will take care of him,” Becker said.

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WATCH: Boris Becker recounts tales from his stint in prison

He went on to add how the prisoners had made Zach apologise to Becker, and the two ended up playing chess against each other.

“Ike came to me later and said, ‘Boris, Zach will apologize for what he’s done.’ I said, ‘Ike, just relax. I’m happy. I don’t want an apology.’ But Ike just said, ‘No, no, prison rules! Zach has to apologize. He threatened you. He’ll pay a price.’

Couple of days later, Ike asked me to come to the laundry and says, ‘Zach is there. He wants to apologize.’ When I go into the laundry room, Zach sees me. He falls to his knees, kisses my hand. I get embarrassed. I ask him to get up. I gave him a long hug. I told him, ‘Who am I to tell you what to do?’ He said ‘I disrespected you, so please take my apologies.’

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“I ended up playing chess with this guy because he was a very good chess player, but I was always a bit afraid of him because he was already there for 17 years. He was 18 when he entered prison—he had killed two people—and was 35 when I had met him. So, he had a mental issue. They say that prison never leaves you even when you leave prison. I felt sorry for him. He killed two people, I know.”

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