Why Hulk Hogan Was So Controversial Before His Death at 71

Hulk Hogan was undoubtedly crucial to WWE’s stratospheric popularity during the 1980s and 1990s, but he was also a hugely controversial figure on screen and off.

Hogan (real name Terry Gene Bollea) — who died at age 71 in July 2025 — publicly apologized in 2015 after leaked sex tape footage caught him using a racial slur and referring to himself as “racist, to a point.”

A source exclusively told Us Weekly following Hogan’s death that the wrestler and his loved ones endured “a very hard time” due to the scandal.

“We were upset about what he had said and did but we knew in our hearts that wasn’t the true Terry,” the insider noted. “That it was just a horribly bad time in his life and what had led up to that, he had gone through so much. People need to know that despite all that, he loved the fans above all. He never forgot them. And always posed for pictures and autographs.”

The 2015 scandal was the highest-profile blip in a divisive career for Hogan, but he was also accused of blocking the formation of a wrestling union in the 1980s and generally wielding his star power to his advantage behind the scenes at WWE.

Keep scrolling for a look at why Hogan was a controversial figure in the wrestling industry:

Racism Controversy

In July 2015, RadarOnline and TMZ published leaked audio from Hogan’s 2012 unauthorized sex tape where he allegedly expressed frustration over his daughter, Brooke, dating a Black man. He was accused of using the N-word multiple times and describing himself as “racist, to a point.” (Hogan later won a $115 Million judgment against Gawker over the unauthorized publication of his sex tape in 2016.)

A WWE spokesperson confirmed to Us Weekly that Hogan had been released from his contract after the company received a transcript of the offensive comments.

“WWE terminated its contract with Terry Bollea (a.k.a. Hulk Hogan),” a company representative told Us. “WWE is committed to embracing and celebrating individuals from all backgrounds as demonstrated by the diversity of our employees, performers and fans worldwide.”

Hogan’s initial response to the media firestorm was a cryptic tweet, in which he wrote that “in the storm, I release control, God and his Universe will sail me where he wants me to be.”

Hogan subsequently spoke to ABC News in August 2015, where he acknowledged feeling “completely broken and destroyed.” The wrestling icon said that he’d even contemplated ending his life over the public backlash.

“Please forgive me. Please forgive me,” Hogan begged fans during his ABC News sitdown. “I think if you look at the whole picture of who Hulk Hogan is, you can see over all the years that there’s not a racist bone in my body.”

Asked directly by journalist Amy Robach whether he was “a racist,” Hogan replied, “I’m not a racist but I never should have said what I said. It was wrong. I’m embarrassed by it.”

“People need to realize that you inherit things from your environment,” he argued. “And where I grew up was South Tampa, Port Tampa, and it was a really rough neighborhood, very low-income. And all my friends, we greeted each other saying that word.”

Hogan insisted that the offensive slur was “just thrown around like it was nothing” during his upbringing.

Wrestling World Reactions

Some of Hogan’s peers did come to his defense in the wake of his WWE termination, including Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson telling reporters in July 2015 that he’d “not known [Hulk] to be racist.” (Dwayne’s father, Rocky Johnson, helped Hogan break into the professional wrestling industry in the 1970s.)

“It’s funny, it’s one of those things where, and not justifying what he said, but we’ve all talked trash, especially in private,” Dwayne admitted. “He said what he said and he’s paying the price.”

NBA legend — and Hogan’s former tag team partner in World Championship Wrestling — Dennis Rodman tweeted that “there isn’t a racist bone” in the 12-time World Heavyweight Champion’s body.

Hogan was reinstated by WWE and its Hall of Fame in 2018 after making multiple public apologies. While Hogan did meet with WWE wrestlers to explain himself at the company’s Extreme Rules 2018 event, several wrestlers expressed conflicted feelings over his apology.

WWE star Kofi Kingston released a statement on behalf of the New Day tag team — which also included Big E and Xavier Woods — to say they were “indifferent” to Hogan’s reinstatement.

“We are not happy, or sad, angry or resentful,” Kingston wrote. “Who WWE puts into the HOF is totally and completely up to the company and from a career standpoint, there is no argument on whether or not Hogan should have his place. We have no problem with his re-induction in the slightest degree. It is impossible to even begin to mention the history and evolution of the business without mentioning his name and accolades.”

Kingston said that he felt differently “on a personal” level about Hogan’s “racist and hateful comments,” adding, “We find it difficult to simply forget, regardless of how long ago it was, or the situation in which those comments were made.”

“But we also do not respond with more feelings of hate,” Kingston insisted. “Instead, we just do not associate with the people who convey or have conveyed this negative and hurtful mindset. This instance will be no different. Perhaps if we see him make a genuine effort to change, then maybe our opinion will change with him. Time will tell.”

WWE legend Mark Henry appeared on TMZ Live shortly after Hogan’s reinstatement to confirm that the company’s Black wrestlers were divided over the issue.

“He sees people who used to respect him, they look at him different and it hurts,” Henry said. “He brought that on himself but he’s trying his best to clear that up. … Some people are going to say, ‘He’s missing them big checks, so he wants to rectify the situation.’ That’s always a factor, we always want to keep our buying power up. I don’t think that’s the case with him.”

The controversy lingered over the final years of Hogan’s life. He was booed while cohosting WrestleMania 37 with WWE star Titus O’Neilin New Orleans in March 2021.

“I expected some boos, but I didn’t expect it to be at that level,” O’Neill later admitted to Busted Open Radio. “To Hulk’s credit, he took it in stride and kept going. It was definitely different.”

Only a few months before his death, Hogan was once again booed when he appeared on camera at WWE Monday Night Raw’s live Netflix launch in Los Angeles in January 2025. Current WWE superstar Seth Rollins later called Hogan “a victim of his own ego” and suggested the Hall of Famer “just lives in this space that he’s created for himself.”

“I think if you’re going to be like that, people are gonna treat you accordingly. I don’t know what to tell you,” Rollins said on the “Outta Pocket” podcast in April 2025, adding, “Dude, if you are not a good person, and it’s in your moral ethic to not treat everyone with the same respect, regardless of what they do, or where they come from, or the color of their skin, I got no time for you.”

Wrestling Union

Hogan’s in-ring rival and former Minnesota Governor Jesse “The Body” Ventura has often blamed Hogan for the failure to establish a wrestlers’ union in the 1980s. Ventura told Chris Van Vliet in a 2024 interview that he’d been approached by an NFL union rep with an offer to help organize the WWE wrestlers on the eve of WrestleMania 2 in 1986.

“[Hulk] betrayed me,” Ventura alleged. “We were all in the dressing room, there was nobody in the office. I waited. I got up on a chair and I told everyone, ‘Now is our time to unionize.’ All the publicity’s gone out on WrestleMania. If we refuse to wrestle unless union negotiators are brought in, it’s federal law, they have to be brought in! … We can force [WWE and its competitors] to do collective bargaining and we can finally get a union.”

Ventura alleged that then-WWE chairman Vince McMahon found out from someone in the locker room and squashed the plan. When Ventura later sued WWE over royalties, McMahon admitted in a deposition that it was Hogan who exposed Ventura’s’s unionization plan to WWE brass.

Asked whether he was open to making peace with Hogan, Ventura said in 2024, “It ain’t gonna happen until I hear an apology from him.”

Hogan confirmed in a separate interview with Van Vliet that he “did” sabotage Ventura’s attempts to unionize the WWE workforce.

“I was making crazy money,” Hogan said. “I was getting my break and Jesse wanted to have a union where everybody got paid the same? I said [no] and went to Vince. … He’s right about that. If I did it, I’ll say I did it.”

Behind-the-Scenes Influence

Hogan also gained a notorious reputation for allegedly using his immense star power to hold back other wrestlers in both WWE and its competitor World Championship Wrestling. (Hogan left WWE in 1994 for a six-year stint in WCW before coming back to WWE in 2002.) One of Hogan’s fiercest critics was fellow WWE Hall of Fame inductee Bret Hart, who accused Hogan of refusing to lose the WWE Championship to him in the 1990s.

“Hulk Hogan’s always been such a liar,” Hart complained on TMZ in April 2025. “Whatever he tells you, it’s probably not true.”

The Undertaker (real name Mark Calway) famously alleged that Hogan faked an injury following their 1991 Survivor Series match in order to undermine Taker’s place in the WWE hierarchy.

“In ’91, I wrestled none other than the golden goose [Hogan],” Undertaker recalled on his podcast. “He goes, ‘Hey, brother, I’m really nervous about taking [Taker’s Tombstone signature move]. I got this bad neck.’ I was like, ‘I promise you, I’ll take great care of you.’”

According to Undertaker, Hogan later accused him of injuring him with the maneuver during their pay-per-view main event bout. Undertaker, who was new to WWE at that point, worried he’d face repercussions until he reviewed footage that showed Hogan wasn’t telling the truth.

“Sure enough, his f***in’ head never touched [the ring canvas],” Undertaker grumbled.

Even Hogan’s longtime business associate and friend Vince McMahon has been critical of him at various points. During an interview on Canada’s Off the Record in 1999, McMahon quipped that Hogan is “not as big as he thinks he is.”

For his part, Hogan maintained during his chat with Van Vliet in 2024 that many of his coworkers’ complaints weren’t valid.

“There’s a lot of stuff that, kind of like, doesn’t bother me but I pray for those people and [think] everything will straighten out,” Hogan said. “[I hope] they’ll learn lessons I’ve learned along the way.”

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