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“There was a little strain with his daughter and their relationship that had taken quite the emotional toll, but he always thought he would eventually be able to rectify that,” one insider shared.
The cause of their fallout remains unclear, but Hogan reportedly held onto hope until the end that reconciliation was possible. His friends believe that this unresolved rift — especially after years of silence — weighed heavily on him in his final months.
Despite the fractured relationship with Brooke, Hogan was said to have maintained a close bond with his son, Nick. Family members noted that his death came as a complete shock.
“He was still extremely close to his son,” the insider added. “It is a surprise and doesn’t feel real at all to his family and friends.”
For years, the grueling toll of professional wrestling had left Hogan physically broken. Once a titan of strength, he was, by his own account, left with “the body of a 140-year-old man.” A string of medical issues followed him, including a serious neck surgery just last month. Yet, it was the pain in his heart — not his body — that truly haunted him.
Linda Hogan, his ex-wife, painted a complicated picture of the fractured family. In a candid and tearful video posted last March, she spoke openly about the emotional wreckage left behind.
“She’s had twins, she got married, she didn’t tell us,” Linda revealed in the video, lamenting her daughter’s long silence. “She had a huge fight with Terry. I don’t know how that reflected onto me. But she cut me out, too. I haven’t talked to her for seven years – almost eight years now.”
Linda also criticized her former husband’s personal demons, calling him a “liar” and “sex addict,” and slammed his third marriage to Sky Daily as further eroding what was left of their family unity.
Brooke Hogan, now 36, never went public with the exact cause of the estrangement. But according to Linda, her daughter claimed she was “verbally and mentally abused since childhood.”
Even with the bitterness that lingered, Brooke reportedly did make one final gesture. According to a TMZ report, she made a last-minute call to her father — telling him she loved him — before his passing.
Her husband, hockey player Steven Oleksy, had made multiple attempts over the years to broker peace within the family, but reconciliation remained elusive.
Linda, still visibly shaken, confessed that the heartbreak had never left her.
“I’ve given him more opportunities to come back and make us a family,” she said through tears. “I’ve never put a Facebook [post] out like this with my ugly face and my crying face, but I have to be honest about what I went through in my marriage with Terry. It’s been 20 years and I’m still this sad. Somebody please explain that. I don’t know. It just doesn’t get better.”
As the wrestling community and fans across America mourn the loss of a true titan, the final revelations about Hulk Hogan’s personal battles offer a sobering glimpse into the human behind the headlines. Beneath the bandanas, fame, and flexing, lived a man yearning for healing, family, and one last chance to make things right.
