Dwayne Johnson needs no introduction. From being one of the most loved, respected, and well-known wrestlers in the WWE, he took Hollywood by storm. After conquering the business world, he sits with a net worth of $800 million today and has one of any wrestler’s most inspirational life stories. However, this story about his father shows where The Rock gets his willpower from.

Johnson followed in his father’s footsteps to become a wrestler, but his father never had the childhood Johnson did.

 Dwayne Johnson shares his father’s heartbreaking story

Johnson belongs to the Anoa’i family of professional wrestlers. His father was the late, great Rocky Johnson. He was hailed as one of the best wrestlers of his time. The Rock’s father was the first black champion in the WWE. However, the success he attained didn’t nullify the hard life lessons he learned in his childhood.

While on the What Now? with Trevor Noah podcast, The Rock shared a story about his father’s troubled childhood. Johnson spoke candidly about his father and the tribulations he had to go through. The Rock was Noah’s podcast’s first guest, making it memorable with this story.

“The man who raised me, who was my dad, was Rocky Johnson. His dad died when he was 13,” The Rock started out his story by setting the stage at what age his grandfather passed away. The Rock’s father lived with his mother after his dad passed away. Unfortunately, his mother had several boyfriends. One of them had a little too much to drink during the holiday season.

An altercation occurred between Rocky Johnson and his mother’s boyfriend. This led to Johnson telling the mother’s intoxicated boyfriend, “If you cross that line, I’m going to kill you.” This brought the cops, who told Rocky Johnson’s mother that one of them had to go. Picking the boyfriend over her son, she asked Johnson to leave. At the age of 13, without a father and now a mother, Johnson was on the streets. Despite sharing a complicated relationship with his father, The Rock expressed his gratefulness to his father for the lessons he learned.

The Rock’s training started at an early age

While talking about his father, Johnson always said he was grateful for the training he received. “He’d kick my a** from one side of the gym to the other for years. I hated it when I was a kid, but grateful for it as a man,” Johnson said in an interview with People’s magazine in 2023.

Sadly, Rocky Johnson passed away on January 15, 2020, at the age of 75. The entire WWE Universe and all of Johnson’s co-workers poured in their love and support for the family.

What do you think about the heartbreaking story of Rocky Johnson at the age of 13? Tell us your thoughts down below.