Whatever Happened To Hulk Hogan
While his friends and family know him as Terry Bollea, wrestling fans know him as Hulk Hogan, whose shirt-shredding Hulkamania shtick and "24-inch pythons" brought him to the pinnacle of professional wrestling. At the time, in the early 1980s, Hogan was at the forefront of wrestling busting into mainstream pop culture.
Over the ensuing years, Hogan has remained a celebrity as he continually stepped in and out of wrestling, and in and out of WWE (he's also wrestled for rival leagues WCW and TNA). In fact, Hogan has also managed to remain famous for decades, something that is a rarity for celebrities in general, but even more so for pro wrestlers.
Along the way, there have been movies and TV shows, some pretty heavy controversies, dramatic ups and downs in his personal life, and tons and tons of branded merch. With Hogan celebrating his 70th birthday in 2023, what transpired for him during the years since his WWE heyday in the 1980s? For a closer look, read on to discover whatever happened to Hulk Hogan.
Hulk Hogan went from wrestling to movies
When pro wrestlers such as John Cena and Dwayne Johnson embarked on movie careers, they were following the trail blazed by Hulk Hogan. A high-profile appearance in 1982's "Rocky III" led to a starring role in the 1989 feature "No Holds Barred," followed by "Suburban Commando" and "Mr. Nanny." Meanwhile, his "Thunder in Paradise" gig featured a series of TV movies and a TV show. A few more movie roles came (such as "Santa with Muscles" in 1996) and the occasional TV guest spot (in series ranging from Brooke Shields sitcom "Suddenly Susan" to Chuck Norris' "Walker, Texas Ranger") before Hogan's movie career eventually fizzled out.
Years later, an opportunity arose for a big-screen comeback — which he turned down. "I was approached three times to do the movie 'The Wrestler,' that Mickey Rourke part, and I kept telling them if I did it the film would suck," Hogan told Digital Spy. Even though the role of a washed-up, beaten-down pro wrestler on his last legs was certainly not much of a stretch for him at that point. However, he realized the baggage he'd bring to the film would ultimately be a hindrance. "When the script for 'The Wrestler' kept coming to me I said, 'This movie is so good if you put me in the film as a wrestler people are going to say, 'No credibility, Hulk Hogan isn't a good actor, whatever Hollywood thinks of me," he added.
Hulk Hogan endorsed some nutty products
Hulk Hogan has been among the many celebrities to use their star status to hawk products, and over the years he's attached his name to some pretty bonkers stuff. Among these was an energy drink, which imbued the drinker with all the benefits of taurine, vitamins B12 and B6, and Horny Goat Weed. Then, of course, there was Hogan's foray into snack foods with the Hulkster Cheeseburger, which could be purchased from the freezer section of the nearest convenience store or gas station and popped into a microwave for a culinary experience that could generously be described as regrettable. There was also the Hulk Hogan Thunder Mixer, or what most people would call a blender.
However, Hogan will always be haunted by the one that got away: a lightweight, indoor grill that drained away fat from meat, thus rendering whatever was being grilled far healthier than it otherwise would have been. Hogan, however, decided to take a pass on what would eventually become known as the George Foreman Grill, which reportedly made the heavyweight boxer $138 million wealthier.
Hogan eventually saw the error of his ways and slapped his name on a different grill, a variation of the as-seen-on-TV phenom that made Foreman more money than he ever earned from boxing. This proved to be a massive mistake when that product — Hulk Hogan's Ultimate Grill — was recalled after several reports that it caught fire, in some cases causing burns.
He testified at the steroid trial of WWE boss Vince McMahon
During the 1990s, the use of anabolic steroids among athletes came to the forefront, particularly in baseball. The controversy eventually drifted to pro wrestling, with WWF (as it was then known) head Vince McMahon charged with conspiring to distribute steroids to the wrestlers in his organization, and ordering them to take the drugs in order to build up impressive muscle mass.
Several of the league's wrestlers were called in to testify at the 1994 trial, including Hulk Hogan. Under oath, Hogan confessed that he regularly took steroids (which weren't illegal until 1991) for more than a decade. "I believed it was legal because I had a prescription for it," Hogan said, as reported by The New York Times. According to Hogan, steroids weren't just for building muscle, but also helped to speed recovery from injuries and help him maintain his grueling wrestling schedule. However, Hogan was adamant that McMahon never explicitly directed him to take steroids. McMahon was ultimately acquitted of all charges.
Years later, Hogan opened up even more about his steroid use. "It was kind of a wave of what was the correct thing to do at the time," Hogan told the "Rover's Morning Glory" radio show. "[In the] 70s, 80s, doctors would write you a prescription for a steroid, where every sport in the world was doing it and the mindset was, 'it was safer than taking sugar.'"
Hulk Hogan released an album
Before he became Hulk Hogan, professional wrestler, he was Terry Bollea, bass player in a Florida bar band called Ruckus. In 1995, riding the wave of his popularity, he returned to his musical roots with "Hulk Rules," an album he recorded with a group of musicians dubbed The Wrestling Boot Band.
Given that "Hulk Rules" was a novelty record full of silly songs that all focused on the awesomeness of Hulk Hogan, it's debatable that it was a true representation of Hogan's actual musical aspirations, and not a slapdash quickie with the sole goal of parting fans from their money. Hogan's feelings about the effort were apparent when he was asked about "Hulk Rules" during an interview with Vice, and he simply sighed and face-palmed.
In that interview, Hogan revealed that the album's producer and musical mastermind was wrestling manager Jimmy Hart, himself a former musician. "Hulk went into the studio and we got two great money deals off it, really," Hart explained. Hart also recalled being approached by a British music executive named Simon Cowell, who encouraged Hogan to record a cover of Gary Glitter's "Leader of the gang (I Am)" and release it as a single — which Hart claimed was No. 1 in Britain for five weeks. "That's how he came over here to the United States," Hogan said of Cowell. "It's kind of weird that Simon Cowell got his break in the United States because of wrestling — that's insane!"
He's tried his hand at becoming a restaurateur
Around the same time he was body-slamming eardrums with "Hulk Rules," Hulk Hogan decided to open up an Italian restaurant in Minneapolis' Mall of America, called Pastamania. As The Sportster recalled, the menu took a mix-and-match approach, offering five different types of pasta that could be topped with one of five different sauces, while kids could chow down on such specialties as "Hulkaroni and Cheese." The concept was a hit with no one, and Pastamania closed its doors just a few months after the grand opening.
In 2012, Hogan dipped his toe in the restaurant business again, telling the Tampa Bay Times of his plans to open Hogan's Beach, which he described as "Jimmy Buffet's [Margaritaville] times 10; Hooters times 10," but in a family-friendly kind of way. At the time, Hogan was hopeful that his new Tampa eatery would also generate a new TV reality show. "It's 'Baywatch,' 'Muscle Beach' and 'Cheers' all in one," he said, describing the pitch for the never-produced reality show. Hogan's Beach opened in January 2013, and shut down two years later.
Undeterred by those back-to-back culinary failures, Hogan stepped up to bat one more time with Hogan's Hangout in Clearwater, Florida, launching with a soft opening in late 2020. As of summer 2023, the place was still open for business — perhaps proving the third time was the charm when it came to Hogan's aspirations as a restaurateur.
He reinvented himself as a reality TV star
In the early 2000s, Black Sabbath frontman Ozzy Osbourne and his family single-handedly created the so-called "celebreality" sub-genre of reality television with "The Osbournes." In the wake of that show's unexpected success, many more famous folks suddenly began inviting cameras into their homes for their own reality shows. Hulk Hogan was among them, with "Hogan Knows Best" premiering in 2005 on VH1. Featuring Hogan, wife Linda, son Nick, and daughter Brooke — an aspiring singer who used the platform from the reality show to launch a so-so music career — the show proved to be an out-of-the-box hit that gifted the network with its most-watched series premiere ever.
While television viewers enjoyed watching the Hogan family's hijinks, behind the scenes a very different story was unfolding as the Hogans' marriage was unraveling. Then, Nick was involved in a horrific car accident that resulted in the passenger suffering massive injuries. Nick was charged with reckless driving and found guilty, ultimately serving 166 days behind bars. Despite the show's earlier success, VH1 had no choice but to pull the plug, and canceled the show after four seasons.
If there was one positive outcome from the personal drama, it was that VH1 greenlit a spinoff featuring Brooke as she ventured out on her own, separate from the rest of the family. "Brooke Knows Best" ran for two seasons, from 2008 until 2009.
His infidelity led to the end of his marriage
Another factor — arguably the biggest — that contributed to the cancellation of "Hogan Knows Best" was Linda Hogan's announcement that she was filing for divorce to end her 24-year marriage to Hulk Hogan.
Linda Hogan went public to reveal the reason she filed for divorce: she discovered that her husband had been cheating on her with their daughter's friend. "When Linda discovered Hulk had [an affair] with Brooke's best friend, Christiane Plante, she made the decision to call it quits on the marriage," her publicist, Gary Smith, told E! News. Despite denials from Hogan's team, Plante later confirmed the affair, and offered an apology. "I'm terribly sorry for what occurred," Plante told the National Enquirer, but claimed that the Hogans had already separated by the time the affair began.
After a bitter two-year court battle, the divorce was settled in 2009. "The war is over," Linda told The Tampa Tribune. While terms of the settlement were initially kept mum, E! News later reported that she was granted in excess of 70 percent of the couple's assets, in addition to a 40-percent stake in the wrestler's assorted companies, along with another $3 million from the sale of their jointly owned beach house. Meanwhile, Linda was making headlines of her own thanks to her relationship with boyfriend Charlie Hill — who was just 19 when they started dating in 2008, nearly 30 years her junior.
He squandered hundreds of millions
There's no denying that Hulk Hogan's divorce put a considerable dent in his bank account, but there were other factors at play that spelled bad news for his finances. In 2011, he appeared on "Good Morning America" to reveal he was on the brink of bankruptcy. At the time, he had just cut the asking price on his oceanfront Florida mansion by a staggering $16 million in order to facilitate a quick sale, reducing the price from $25 million to just under $9 million. He was, he revealed, living in a modest rental as he tried to keep his personal expenses down.
According to Hogan, he blamed his lavish lifestyle for his current situation. "I blew hundreds of millions," Hogan explained, as reported by the Daily Mail. "There were houses being bought, and cars being bought, and vacations for family members. There was eight, nine, $10 million, $11 million going out, so it got way off," he added.
Meanwhile, Access offered further examples of Hogan's out-of-control spending when the outlet obtained a copy of the Hogans' divorce filing in 2008. At that time, the court papers listed such monthly expenses as $38,000 for legal fees, $7,000 on clothing, $7,500 on maid services for their various properties, and another $1,700 spent on jewelry.
The leak of his sex tape left him devastated
While Hulk Hogan's finances took a hit, it was his reputation that took some serious damage with the 2012 release of a sex tape. Filmed six years earlier, via a secret camera that Hogan didn't know about, the recording featured Hogan having sex with Heather Clem, wife of his good friend Todd Clem, a.k.a. radio host Bubba the Love Sponge. "He feels absolutely betrayed," Hogan's lawyer, David Houston, told the New York Daily News of being secretly filmed (Heather Clem later confirmed that she and her husband regularly made secret recordings of her X-rated romps with other men).
Hogan subsequently appeared on NBC's "Today," where he told hosts Hoda Kotb and Kathie Lee Gifford that he was unaware his sexual encounter was being filmed. "First off, I had no idea there was a camera in the room," he said, via E! News, but took responsibility for his actions. "I'm accountable. I was the guy. I was there. I made the choice," he added. Hogan also admitted that the whole thing took place during a precarious period. "It was at a really low point in my life when I was in a previous marriage when things were bottomed out completely," he said.
The release of the tape — which was first posted on the Gawker website — had left him devastated. "It really rattled my world bad," Hogan said in a 2012 sit-down with Howard Stern. "It's totally destroyed my world."
He took on Gawker and won millions
Hulk Hogan took action over the leaked sex tape and sued Gawker, seeking $100 million in damages. The trial wasn't just sensational due to its salacious subject matter, but also for the legal battle that it represented: a news organization's First Amendment right to free speech vs. a celebrity's right not to have his privacy invaded. Hogan's lawyers mounted a vigorous argument in the case, contending that Gawker didn't follow the typical journalistic protocol before uploading the video on its website, and didn't contact Hogan or the Clems (who had since separated) beforehand. Gawker, however, countered that their actions were justified because the tape was newsworthy, even implying that Hogan was behind the leak, in order to give his sagging career a boost.
The jury sided with Hogan. As The New York Times reported, he was awarded a whopping $115 million. Emphasizing just how emphatically Hogan won the case, the jury then awarded him an additional $25 million in punitive damages, escalating the total payout to $140 million.
The verdict proved devastating for Gawker, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, and ultimately shuttered the site. "We're exceptionally happy with the verdict," Hogan said in a statement, as reported by CBC News. "We think it represents a statement as to the public's disgust with the invasion of privacy disguised as journalism. The verdict says no more."
A racist tirade caught on tape led to backlash
In 2015, after the sex tape scandal and ensuing legal battle, the tape yielded even further controversy when another part of the tape became the focus of publications like Radar Online and The National Enquirer. At issue here wasn't sex, but Hogan's shocking statements. "I mean, I am a racist, to a point," he said, ultimately using the N-word multiple times. Hogan issued an apology. "Eight years ago I used offensive language during a conversation," Hogan said, via CNN. "It was unacceptable for me to have used that offensive language; there is no excuse for it; and I apologize for having done it."
He also sued Gawker a second time, this time for allegedly leaking the recording containing those embarrassing remarks. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Hogan's new lawsuit alleged that Gawker had, on several occasions, threatened to go public with that tape in hopes of bullying him into dropping his first lawsuit.
Later that year, The New York Times reported that Gawker settled with Hogan for $31 million. In a blog post (via The New York Times), Gawker founder Nick Denton explained the decision to settle had less to do with Hogan than it did with Peter Thiel, the billionaire who had secretly been funding Hogan's lawsuit due to a vendetta against the company over unflattering stories written about him. "After four years of litigation funded by a billionaire with a grudge going back even further, a settlement has been reached," Denton said.
WWE terminated him after his racism controversy
Despite the controversy over who'd leaked the tape and how it wound up in the clutches of the National Enquirer, Hulk Hogan experienced some pretty severe backlash for his racist remarks. He was also fired from the WWE, with the sports entertainment company issuing a statement announcing it had terminated the wrestler's contract.
Hogan was penitent, and begged the public to give him a second chance. "Just because a person makes a mistake, just don't throw 'em away," he said during an interview with ABC's "Nightline." "If everybody, at their lowest point, was judged on one thing they said, and all of a sudden your whole career was wiped out today because of something you said 10 or 20 years ago, it would be a sad world."
After a mea culpa media tour that included stops on "The View" and a speech at his induction into the Boys and Girls of America's Alumni Hall of Fame), he later told People that he'd learned from the experience. "I'm definitely not in the same place I was 12 or 13 years ago, you know, when I said such stupid words, what came out of my head," he said. "That's not who I am."
He returned to WWE, this time with a whole new controversy
After a three-year suspension, in 2018 Hulk Hogan was reinstated into the WWE Hall of Fame. There were rumors that the WWE was further softening its stance toward Hogan when he attended the premiere of HBO's documentary about fellow wrestling legend Andre the Giant, while a report from PW Insider claimed that he was in the midst of discussions with WWE execs about returning to the fold. Those rumors escalated, until it was finally announced that Hogan was returning to WWE.
As CBS Sports reported, WWE confirmed that Hogan would be hosting its Crown Jewel wrestling extravaganza in Riyadh, marking the WWE's first such event set in Saudi Arabia.
Of course, American sporting events held in Saudi Arabia have become intensely controversial due to the nation's abysmal human rights record, draconian treatment of women, and the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, among other issues. That proved to be the case with Crown Jewel, with Sports Illustrated reporting that wrestlers John Cena and Daniel Bryan flat out refused to participate. "Bringing Hogan back at all is a slap in the face to these wrestlers," wrote SI's Jimmy Traina. "Bringing him back to host a show in Saudi Arabia is an epic case of tone deafness and reeks of total desperation after Cena and Bryan bailed on participating in the event."
Is Hulk Hogan getting a Hollywood biopic?
In February 2019, The Hollywood Reporter reported that Netflix had greenlit a biopic about the life of Hulk Hogan, with Chris Hemsworth to star and Todd Phillips (whose credits include "Joker" and the "Hangover" movies) attached to direct. According to THR, the film would cover Hogan's early career in wrestling and the rise of Hulkamania in the 1980s, without getting into the sad and seedy scandals of more recent years.
Interviewed by Total Film (via ComicBook.com), Hemsworth discussed the fitness regimen he'd be undertaking to bulk up to gain a Hogan-like physique. "As you can imagine, the preparation for the role will be insanely physical," he explained. "I will have to put on more size than I ever have before, even more than I put on for Thor." (Hogan chimed in via Twitter, jokingly asking, "But is he good looking enough to play me lol,lol,lol.")
However, in 2022 Hemsworth offered an update indicating that it would be some time before the Hulk Hogan biopic arrives. "That film's a while away," he told ComicBook.com. "That's sort of in the development stage you know, and if that comes to fruition, great ... Haven't ripped any shirts off yet, but you'll be the first to hear about it when I do."
He addressed reports he was left paralyzed by back surgery
In early 2023, wrestler Kurt Angle shared some news about Hulk Hogan to listeners of his podcast, "The Kurt Angle Show." According to Angle, Hogan had just undergone back surgery, and was experiencing some scary complications. "He had the nerves cut from his lower body. He can't feel his lower body," said Angle, noting that Hogan had been using a cane to assist him when he walked. "He doesn't have any pain. He has nothing at all," Angle clarified. "So now he can't feel his legs. So he has to walk with a cane which is, you know, that's pretty serious, man."
While fans fretted about Hogan's health, the wrestler's rep disputed Angle's characterization of his condition. "Everything is okay with him," Hogan's rep told ET, insisting he did not need a cane in order to walk. "Hulk is someone with a lot of humor." That said, Hogan was later photographed walking with a cane.
To settle the matter, Hogan posted a photo via Instagram, of himself hosting a karaoke party at his Hogan's Hangout eatery. Several months later, in July 2023, any lingering issues from that surgery were seemingly well behind him. In fact, Hogan appeared to be in the best shape he'd been in years when he spoke with Men's Health, revealing he was eating healthier, had quit drinking and had slimmed down to 265 pounds. "The last time I weighed 265 I was in ninth grade," boasted the 69-year-old wrestler.