Brooke Hogan says she had already mourned the loss of her relationship with Hulk Hogan before he died, but there was one realization after his death that hit her harder than she expected. She learned her father apparently believed the end was coming — and still chose to leave things between them exactly as they were.
Speaking on the Leave Then Cleave podcast, Brooke explained that the final breakdown between her and Hulk wasn’t really about one of his relationships or any single piece of family drama. For her, things finally broke when she tried to tell her father how she felt and walked away believing that she simply wasn’t a priority to him.
Brooke said that was especially difficult after everything they had been through together. She had been there for surgeries, helped take care of him and forgiven plenty over the years, only to eventually hear Hulk tell her they should simply go their separate ways.
“The thing that really was like the thing that broke me and my dad up was not even about the dating, the Scientologist. It wasn’t about anything like that. It was that I really started seeing how much he valued me when the conversations got real and when I expressed my heart and it was met with complete—he literally said, ‘You go your way, I’ll go mine.’ And I was like, that’s the biggest embarrassing thing, right? You go through with all this, and it’s not an ‘after all I’ve done for you’ thing, like a narcissistic parent.
It’s more like, I’m your daughter. After all the surgeries, after all the times I helped you get dressed, after all the conversations we had in the hospital room together alone, like after all the bonding, after all the things I’ve forgiven you for, like after all the headway I thought we made, like I’m just your daughter and I love you so much. Like, what? And I realized then and there, I’m like, he will always choose the woman over me. He will always choose himself over me. He will always choose everything over me.”
By the time Hulk actually died, Brooke said she had already gone through a lot of the grieving process. Going no-contact with a parent, in her experience, meant mourning somebody who was technically still alive. That also meant Brooke wasn’t left wondering whether she could have tried harder once Hulk was gone. She believes she did everything she could to save their relationship, and that’s why she says regret hasn’t really been part of her grief.
“You mourn your parent already when you go no contact. You mourn them as if they’ve already died. It hurts like a [unclear]. And it almost hurts more to mourn somebody when they’re alive.”
Brooke said she knew Hulk had made his own decisions about how their relationship ended. She had tried, and eventually she had to accept that she couldn’t force him to meet her halfway.
“When my dad passed, I knew that that was coming. I was prepared for it. And I also was prepared knowing he also made the decisions that got us to this point. He chose the way he treated me. He chose the way he responded. He chose the way he didn’t respond. And I know in my heart I’ve done everything. And the sadness comes, and the—I will say, and people are going to think I’m a jerk for saying this, but regret hasn’t come because I know I’ve tried the best I could.”
But something Brooke learned after Hulk’s death made all of that hurt in a completely different way. She claims she found out her father had called some wrestlers or friends toward the end and told them he didn’t think he was going to make it. Brooke didn’t identify who received those calls. What bothered her was realizing that Hulk apparently knew there was a real possibility he was dying and still never used that time to try to fix things with his daughter.
“And a surprising feeling that I had when he passed was I had found out that he had made a couple calls to some wrestlers or some friends of his saying, ‘I don’t think I’m going to make it out of this one. I think this is kind of the end.’ Like he kind of knew it was the end. And when he passed, the thing that hit me the most was he left it like that.”
That’s the part Brooke seems to have the hardest time accepting. She said she wasn’t okay with leaving their relationship broken and had continued fighting for it until Hulk himself told her to stop. Knowing he may have realized he was approaching the end only made that final rejection more painful. Brooke said Hulk ultimately died with their relationship unresolved, something she wishes had gone very differently.
“He was okay with leaving things the way they were. I wasn’t. I fought till the end until he said, ‘Stop fighting. Leave me alone.’ Uh, he left earth with that ego. He left earth with the one daughter that he had that I feel was literally sent to be his angel on earth. Like, that loved him more than I know anybody. All those people that showed up at the end there for a paycheck. And I’m just like, my daddy left me like that, you know? And that’s the thing that hurts the most, you know? So, and I wish I could say I was surprised, but I’m not. And that’s what hurts even more, right? So, there’s so many levels. There’s so many levels to it.”
Brooke isn’t pretending there was some last-minute reconciliation that never happened. Instead, she seems to be trying to live with the fact that she wanted one, fought for one and ultimately never got it — even when time may have been running out.
Do you think Brooke Hogan’s comments change how you view the final years of her relationship with Hulk Hogan? Let us know what you think in the comments.
This transcript was produced exclusively for Ringside News from the original recording. Republishing the transcription in full is prohibited. When using excerpts, provide prominent credit and a link to this article.
