From seven dollars to his name to seven figure paychecks, "The Rock" has come a
long way from his humble beginnings as a gang member on the streets of Honolulu.
Dwayne Johnson is famously from a wrestling family,
but just because his father was Rocky Johnson, one of the biggest names in
the 1970s and 1980s wrestling scene, that doesn't mean they were rich.
Johnson spoke with The Sydney Morning Herald around the release of "Young Rock,"
a television show based on his life, and he shared some shocking things.
By the time he was 13 years old, he had lived in 13 different states. That included nine months
where they lived in three different cities. And this constant change in his life shaped
the person he grew up to be. Moving so many times meant that he had to make friends quickly, saying,
"I didn't know anything else and it was tough,
but I look back at it as the start of me learning to connect with people."
That was made even harder by his relationship with his father. The elder Johnson was on the road a
lot, and he described his dad as incredibly tough. He told a story about his earliest memory, his
father pushing him into a kiddie pool when he was two, and added that by the time he was a teenager,
he was sick and tired of being poor. But financial security would elude him for a long time to come.
When Johnson's grandfather, Peter "High Chief" Maivia, passed away after a cancer diagnosis,
he was devastated. Johnson was 10 years old at the time, and his father was largely absent and on
the road. His grandfather had been a stabilizing figure in his life, and that's the kind of grief
that doesn't fade easily. Decades later, Johnson has continued to honor his grandfather, both by
bearing traditional tattoos, and by modeling his "Moana" character, Maui, after Maivia.
His grandfather wasn't the only father figure Johnson lost at a young age.
In a tweet where he shared some old family photos, Johnson paid tribute
to the man he called "the 8th Wonder of the World": Andre the Giant. He wrote,
"Andre was a hero of mine. And for some reason he took a liking to me,
too, & always treated me like his own son."
Andre the Giant died in 1993 at 46 years old. The cause of death was his acromegaly,
the same condition that gave him his famous size. Johnson regularly shares memories of
his friend on social media. In one Instagram photo of both Andre and Maivia, Johnson wrote,
"Would've loved to have raised a tequila with these men."
It's certainly no secret that Dwayne Johnson is in ridiculously good shape – it's part of his brand.
"Hey, and one more thing…"
His hardcore workout sessions and muscle-building didn't start from any sort of vanity, though.
It began because he felt completely helpless after he and his family found themselves homeless.
He shared in a Facebook post that he started training when he was 14 years old. His family
was evicted from their apartment in Hawai'i, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.
The padlock was already on the door when he and his mom got home, and according to Men's Health,
he looked to his father for inspiration on how to make sure they never went through anything
like that again. Physical fitness, he saw, was about more than just physical strength. He wrote:
"I [really] hated that feeling of helplessness and never wanted that to happen again. So,
I did the only thing I could control with my own two hands in hopes that one
day my family would never have to worry about being evicted again — I trained."
That moment left deep scars that persisted even after Johnson hit it big in Hollywood.
He told GQ he still has a fear that one day, it's just all going to be gone. He said,
"I still wake up in the morning with some deep-seated fear that I
have to keep working out so that I don't get evicted tomorrow."
Depression doesn't discriminate, and in 2018,
Dwayne Johnson gave a candid interview to Express about his struggles with it.
He said that one particularly bad episode stemmed from a terrifying incident that occurred when he
was 15. He and his family had been evicted from their apartment a few months prior, and he said,
"I reached a point where I didn't want to do a thing, or go anywhere. I was crying constantly."
It was during this period, he said, that he was witness to his mother's suicide attempt.
They were in Nashville at the time, and he said that his mother had no memory
of the incident afterward, adding, "That was my absolute worst time."
Years later, he says that moment helped define him, and the ways he connects with people.
He reaches out personally to some fans who share their struggles with him,
and said of his own internal battles:
"We both healed, but we've always got to do our best to pay attention when other people
are in pain. We have to help them through it, and remind them they are not alone."
Dwayne Johnson might be everyone's favorite hero on-screen, off-screen, in the ring,
and outside of it, but during his youth, things were headed in a very different direction.
He was definitely more of the villainous Rock. He told GQ that by the time he was 14 years old,
he was already 225 pounds and sporting a mustache, and he added that he was part of a criminal gang.
He's gone into more detail and admitted that by the time he was 17, he'd been arrested around
nine times in connection with his gang activity. He was living in Hawai'i and fell in with a gang
that went after affluent tourists who had money to spend on high-end merchandise. He recalled,
"We would target the money, we would target the high-end clothes,
and we would target the jewelry — turn around and sell it, best we could."
He's also admitted that he was pretty good at it and that the group had some massive scores.
His arrests were mainly for stealing and fighting, and they came at the same time he was working out
at the gym, something that helped swing his life away from the direction it was going.
"I'm a good guy, but sometimes I do bad things."
Dwayne Johnson headed to the University of Miami after high school, scoring a full scholarship for
football. Things were starting to look up, but fate had more setbacks in store. All of his hard
work seemed like it was on the verge of paying off until a devastating shoulder injury sidelined
him in his freshman year. He dropped out of school before returning to give it another shot,
but when it came time for him to graduate, the NFL draft came and went without his name being called.
Still, he wasn't out of the game yet and was instead recruited to play for the Calgary
Stampeders in Canada. It quickly turned into something he didn't bargain for. He was signed for
a $35,000 annual salary, and that meant sharing a two-bedroom apartment with three teammates,
eating ramen, and his bed was a mattress he'd found abandoned outside of a sleazy,
pay-by-the-hour motel. And then? He got cut by the team and went back to Florida.
When he got there, he had to call his father from the airport, asking for a ride.
It was on the four-hour trip home that he realized he only had seven dollars to his name.
When football fell by the wayside for Dwayne Johnson,
he said what followed was a deep depression. He told GQ that while he
never quite hit the point where he wanted everything to just be over, it was close:
"I was just so unhappy and frustrated, because I had nothing."
While he'd been in college, he had chosen to major in criminology,
intending to get into law enforcement with either the CIA or the FBI.
Post-football and post-college, though, he knew neither one of those could happen.
He would need to go back to school, and he knew there was no way the family could afford that.
His options weren't just limited, they seemed non-existent, so, he decided to jump feet-first
into the world he'd grown up in, much to his father's chagrin. Johnson recalled,
"When I first told my dad that I wanted to become a wrestler,
we got into a huge fight. ... I understood what he was saying and I didn't have any
good reason for thinking wrestling was going to be right for me. ... I just felt it in my gut."
His father didn't want him to do it, but he did anyway. He had to start at the bottom,
performing in flea markets and the parking lots of used car dealerships,
trying to make a name for himself and get into the big shows.
Despite rumors that Dwayne Johnson had his eye on the presidency of the U.S.,
he rarely gets political on social media.
"For the past few months I've sat down with candidate Dwayne
Johnson during his historic run for President."
He has spoken out on some issues, though, and that includes posting photos from the
March for Our Lives event. It was organized to protest a lack of action and responsibility when
it comes to ending gun violence, and it was a cause that directly impacted his family.
In 2018, a gunman opened fire in the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. It was the deadliest
high school shooting to date: 17 people were killed, and another 17 were wounded. Johnson's
daughter, Simone, went to a nearby school and knew some of the victims, as Johnson describes:
"She was absolutely terrified. A lot of her friends' friends died.
It's heartbreaking. They're still going through it."
Johnson says that he doesn't have the answer to an incredibly complicated issue,
but he does know one thing for sure: "We've gotta keep our kids safe."
Dealing with the death of a loved one is never easy, and in 2020, Dwayne Johnson lost another
friend to a tragic and bizarre accident. Former WWE star Shad Gaspard had been
swimming with his 10-year-old son off Venice Beach, LA when they were caught in a rip tide.
Gaspard directed lifeguards to save his son, then vanished. Although his family
held out hope that he would survive, his body was recovered later, after washing up on the beach.
Johnson posted a tribute on social media, sharing a picture of the two of them together and writing,
"This one hurts. Great guy. My deepest condolences and love to Shad Gaspard's wife,
son, and family. ... This is a tough one to process."
Gaspard had retired from wrestling in 2010 and was poised to follow the same career path as Johnson.
He'd had several smaller roles in shows like "The Exes" and movies like "Black Panther," and
in a heartfelt tribute from Dave Bautista, it was said that one of the most tragic things about his
untimely passing was that on the verge of seeing his dreams come true, it was all taken away.
From football to wrestling to stunts, Dwayne Johnson's life path has always been incredibly
physical, and he's had some shockingly horrific injuries. In an interview for Wired,
he talked about some of the worst. His shoulder injury, he said, was the complete separation of
his arm and his shoulder, something that took surgical reconstruction to fix. He's
also had five surgeries on his knees and tore his Achilles tendon. And that's just the beginning.
When asked about his abs, he laughed and said that no, he doesn't have the kind of abs that
most in-shape guys like to show off. The reason is the sort of injury that's so bad, that anyone
who hears about it gets sympathy pains. He was in a 2013 wrestling match, squaring off against John
Cena, when he tore the connection between a thigh muscle and his pelvis. That, he says, caused a
major rupture in his abdomen wall, which required emergency surgery to repair. Injuries have since
continued. Three weeks before filming started on "Hercules," he injured a groin muscle and
ended up with another hernia, the same injury he had major surgery to repair several years prior.
Dwayne Johnson said goodbye to his father in 2020.
Rocky "Soul Man" Johnson passed away at the age of 75, there was no cause
of death immediately given. Johnson shared the eulogy he gave on Instagram, saying in part,
"I wish I had one more shot. To say one more thing.
You were taken too fast. Slipped right thru my hands. But you were so loved."
Johnson also reached out to fans through social media to share his appreciation for everyone who
shared condolences and memories with him. He also clarified what had happened. His father's death
had been sudden, after a blood clot in his leg traveled to his heart, causing a massive
heart attack. Johnson said that he regretted not being able to say goodbye, and told the world,
"Go hug your loved ones hard, while you still can."
The rest of the year wasn't kind to Johnson. He also said goodbye to Pat Patterson,
the man who got Vince McMahon to give him a shot, and who gave him the name The Rock.
He was much more than a mentor, though, and Johnson wrote,
"Rough phone calls to get this morning to tell me, our dear family member,
Pat Patterson, who was my pro wrestling mentor and father figure has passed away. ... Love you,
Pat. And THANK YOU. I'll see you down the road."
If you or anyone you know is having suicidal thoughts, please dial or text 988 to speak with
The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. You can also seek help by visiting 988lifeline.org.