Article: The Rock's father ‘crossed the line’ before their final conversation
Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson is speaking out about the last time he talked to his late father, Rocky Johnson, with whom he had a deeply complicated relationship.
The 53-year-old actor said they fought over his father’s memoir. Johnson said Rocky’s book contained quotes, ostensibly written by him, that gave his dad credit for his success.
“It hurts,” he told The New York Times Magazine in an in-depth interview published Sunday.
Johnson’s father, a former pro wrestler himself, had just published Soulman: The Rocky Johnson Story, at the time, and Johnson said he was shocked to read that he had written the foreword for the book — even though he hadn’t.
“It just completely crossed the line,” Johnson said. “It goes back to the attention, the narcissism.”
In fact, Johnson said their 2019 blow-up was the biggest fight he’d had with his father since 25 years earlier, when he decided he wanted to follow in his dad’s pro wrestling footsteps.
Rocky Johnson told his son at the time: “What do you think you possibly have to offer?”
Johnson’s family moved often when he was a kid, and his dad, frequently on the road as a wrestler, often didn’t have time for him.
His parents’ relationship was also volatile to the point where they sometimes lived apart.
Johnson said that was kind of a relief from the fighting.
He also attributed the most painful moment in his life to his father.
When he was 15, he said he and his mother were evicted from their apartment in Hawaii. His mum Ata Johnson asked his dad to let Dwayne stay with him in Tennessee, where he was living at the time, so she could settle things in Hawaii, then drive out and join the two of them.
“It hurt my heart,” Johnson said of seeing his mum’s reaction to the eviction notice left on their door. But he said his father told her, “No problem, I’ve got an apartment.”
However, when Johnson arrived in Nashville, his father was nowhere to be found. Instead, he was greeted by a man named Bob, who drove him to a motel, introduced him to another man named Bruno — whom, incidentally, Johnson is still friends with — and told him he’d be living there.
The Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw actor said he realised instantly that his dad was living with another woman, and when his mother arrived after driving from San Francisco in a Ford Thunderbird purchased by her husband, she found out, too.
“My heart hurts when I think about that,” Johnson said. “The pain that my mum was driving with: Like ‘What is my life now? That whole time?’”
When she arrived at the motel, and was met by Bruno and Rocky, who began talking in circles, she knew.
“That was it. Within five minutes it all just …. It wasn’t even an explosion. It was just a — collapse,” Johnson explained.
He said he learned to think of himself as the main man in his mother’s life, and he was the one who saved her from attempted suicide after that drive to Nashville.
The look on her face, he said, still haunts him.
The rest of his father’s 2019 memoir, Johnson said, was filled with fiction.
“Growing up with my dad, I know the truth to all these stories, and they’re not in this book. If the truth is blue, the story is red,” he explained.
Eventually, Johnson got it pulled from bookstore shelves.
Johnson learned his father had died as he was driving to set on the first day of filming Red Notice in 2020.
He thought at first maybe he should go home and be with his family, but then he remembered one of his father’s many mantras that, no matter what, the “show must go on.”
So he went to work.
It was at his dad’s funeral that he said he realised his dad had been a great friend to so many others, including wrestlers like Hulk Hogan and Triple H.
“Wildly enough, my old man was just this amazing friend,” he said. “Complicated husband. Complicated dad. But an awesome friend to everyone else.”
Asked if he thought he was more his father’s friend than his son, Johnson said no.
“He wasn’t my friend either,” he answered. “I wish. I think that my mum was my friend.”
Johnson now has three children of his own: daughters, Simone, 24; Jasmine, 9; and Tiana, 7.
