Terry Bollea, known by many as wrestling icon Hulk Hogan, is probably the most recognizable men on all the planet. From the red and yellow color scheme to the bandana and mustache combination, it’s hard for somebody like Hogan to remain out of the general public eye. It’s for this reason that, together with The Hulkster, his immediate family have gone on to turn into real celebrities in their very own right.
The Bollea family was the topic of the truth TV shows “Hogan Knows Best,” and later “Brooke Knows Best” which mainly followed his daughter Brooke around during her day-to-day life. While those collectively ran for a complete of 4 years on VH1, the members of the family haven’t been capable of get out of the highlight lately, and it isn’t at all times been for the appropriate reasons.
Hogan himself still makes occasional appearances in WWE, with essentially the most recent being on the January 6, 2025 episode of “WWE Raw,” which also acted as WWE’s official debut on Netflix, where he was booed out of the constructing by the fans in Los Angeles, California, something that The Hulkster wasn’t even that shocked about. He remains to be a presence every week in the shape of his “Real American Beer” company being an official sponsor of WWE, however the incontrovertible fact that Hogan, one among the individuals who took WWE into the mainstream, simply brushed off the negative response he received shows just how polarizing he, and his family, can truly be.
There’ve been scandals, quite a few problems with the law, and internal family feuds which have all made the headlines over time, all of which can be covered here, in addition to some members of Hogan’s clan, who have gotten much more tragic life stories than some people might need originally suspected.
Brooke Hogan
Since we have already mentioned her, let’s begin with Hogan’s daughter Brooke, who can also be partly the explanation why the Bollea family is within the news again.
To place it simply, Brooke’s relationship with each of her parents is incredibly fractured. As recently as March 2025, Brooke’s mother Linda revealed that she hadn’t actually spoken to her daughter in almost eight years, to the purpose where Brooke didn’t tell either of her parents that she had given birth to twins, something that her mother was very hurt by. Linda blamed this on Brooke’s relationship together with her dad, which is nearly as bad as her relationship together with her mom, with Linda claiming that Brooke and Terry had an enormous bust-up that led to her cutting each of her parents out of her life.
Brooke did go to bat for her dad in 2015 when he was caught up in a sex tape scandal that outed him as being a racist (he legitimately said that he was a racist), as he had an issue with Brooke dating a black man. Brooke would also miss her dad’s wedding to his now third wife, yoga instructor Sky Every day, stating on Instagram that she desired to create some space between herself and her family to be able to heal properly.
What’s she healing from exactly? In line with Brooke, she suffered years of emotional, verbal, mental, and physical abuse during her childhood, with Brooke’s mother being the fundamental perpetrator as Brooke claimed “abuse is available in all styles and sizes.” Linda has denied these allegations, but it surely’s not looking likely that Brooke will ever make peace with either one among her parents now that she is happily married and a mother to 2 children, who she gleefully shares pictures of on her social media pages.
Linda Hogan
Keeping with the connection between Brooke and Linda, the previous Mrs. Hogan hasn’t had it easy relating to her personal life lately.
After Brooke alleged that she had suffered years of abuse, mainly by the hands of her own mother, Linda clapped back together with her own allegations, stating that her daughter had once broken her collarbone and that she had multiple other stories of her daughter having an excessive drinking problem. All of this was eventually shot down by Brooke, who provided proof that she did not have a difficulty with alcohol and that her mom was simply lying to attempt to deflect a few of the heat away from her.
As for her ex-husband, Linda has no time for the WWE Hall of Famer. In the identical TMZ article where she explained her relationship with Brooke, Linda called The Hulkster a sex addict, and a liar, and that her entire family is a whole mess. Linda, who has not re-married because the divorce she filed for was finalized in 2009, claimed that she never desires to get married ever again, but remains to be sad on the state of her family, and has given Hogan multiple probabilities to attempt to fix what she believes he has broken.
While she has not gotten married again, Linda did make the news in 2012 when she got engaged to her partner, Charlie Hill, on an episode of “Couples Therapy.” The rationale the engagement made the news was resulting from the couple’s age gap, with Linda being 52, and Charlie being 23, and the incontrovertible fact that their relationship began when Charlie was still only 19. After calling off the engagement, Linda was arrested in October 2012 for driving under the influence but was later released after she managed to post bail.
Steven Oleksy
The primary member of the family not related to The Hulkster by blood, Steven Oleksy has only been a member of the Bollea family for 3 years, marrying Brooke in 2022. Nevertheless, resulting from the continued feud between his wife and his mother-in-law, the previous defenseman for the Washington Capitals and the Pittsburgh Penguins has ended up getting involved within the family drama as well.
Regarding Linda’s comments about Brooke’s reported alcohol problem, Oleksy stepped in by posting on his own Instagram account to clear up any confusion that had been caused and to also stand by his wife amidst all of the abuse she was receiving from her mother. Oleksy would not even consult with Linda by her name, simply calling her “Jane Doe,” and explained that he saw the emotional toll the feud between Brooke and Linda had taken on his wife, and the remainder of the Bollea family, and easily desired to attempt to put an end to it. Considering that every part looked as if it would cool down on the time of writing, Oleksy might need actually managed to defuse the situation by simply specializing in his family.
Outside of the family drama he has found himself in, the one a part of Oleksy’s life that might considered “tragic” is the incontrovertible fact that he would repeatedly get sick as a baby, leading to him needing a pacifier almost the entire time, which in turn led to his teammates throughout the years giving him the nickname “Binky.” Other than that, Oleksy has lived a really successful life having played ice hockey professionally for 18 years, even winning the Stanley Cup with the Pittsburgh Penguins in 2017, before retiring in 2023. He remains to be a daily a part of the ice hockey community but is currently focused on raising his children.
Jennifer McDaniel
Sandwiched in between his marriage to Linda and his current marriage to Every day, Hogan was married to make-up artist Jennifer McDaniel between 2010 and 2021. McDaniel was already painted as a “gold digger” by the media resulting from the age gap between her and Hogan, with McDaniel being either 36 on the time of their wedding, while Hogan was 53. Nevertheless, her work within the film industry meant that she was greater than able to standing on her own two feet, even before meeting the WWE Hall of Famer.
The most important hurdles that McDaniel encountered during her marriage to Hogan were the assorted scandals that The Hulkster found himself in, which led to his then-wife having to defend him to a certain extent. The 2012 lawsuit that Hogan filed against the web site Gawker was based on the incontrovertible fact that the location had leaked a sex tape featuring Hogan and Heather Clem, a lady who was not only the estranged wife of Hogan’s friend Bubba The Love Sponge but was also McDaniel’s close friend as well. After that, the aforementioned sex scandal that got here about in 2015 involving Hogan’s racist rant also led to McDaniel having to publicly defend her husband, something for which she received heavy backlash.
Having said all that, McDaniel’s marital issues remained private towards the tip of the 2010s, a lot in order that Hogan actually announced that the couple had divorced on his Twitter page in essentially the most Hulk Hogan way possible. Hogan said; “Yo Maniacs only for the record, the Facebook and Instagram posts are of me and my girlfriend Sky, I’m officially divorced. Sorry, I believed everyone already knew, love my Maniacs4Life.” Despite her divorce being made public in such an outrageous way, Hogan and McDaniel are reportedly still on good terms.”
Nick Hogan
In terms of the recent rant Linda Hogan went on regarding the state of her family, one positive point that she was capable of make was that she said her son Nick was still such a very good boy. A mother’s love is price twice as much, which could explain why she said what she said about her son, because to place it evenly, Nick Hogan has been anything but an angel over the 20 years.
Nick’s love of motorsports led to him earning a Formula D license in 2006 when he was just 16, and over the following 12 months, he would receive two speeding tickets, 4 points on his normal driving license, and narrowly escape any significant injuries when a automotive he was driving caught on fire. Nevertheless, Nick could be involved in a really serious automotive crash in August 2007, which he would find yourself going to prison for in May 2008 after being charged with reckless driving involving serious bodily injury, and would spend five months behind bars, serve a complete of 4 years of probation, 500 hours of community service, and be banned from driving for 3 years.
The passenger throughout the crash, John Graziano, would sustain injuries that will require medical look after the remainder of his life, and following a lawsuit filed by Graziano’s family, the Bollea family was ordered to cover the prices of Graziano’s medical care. Once he got out of prison, Nick looked as if it would get his life back on the appropriate track, eventually marrying pornographic actress Tana Lea, but not before his legal troubles cropped up over again in November 2023, when he was arrested for driving under the influence while his father was within the automotive, and was sentenced to serve one yr’s price of probation.
Horace Hogan
Moving away from the immediate Bollea family, long-time fans of World Championship Wrestling will remember Horace Hogan appearing on episodes of “WCW Monday Nitro” and “WCW Thunder” towards the tail end of the corporate’s existence. Apart from a version of Stone Cold Steve Austin that you just would find on Temu or Wish, many wrestling fans haven’t got many fond memories of Hogan’s work in WCW, despite having a greater than respectable profession in Japan with corporations like FMW. Nevertheless, Horace Hogan not being the most effective wrestler on this planet is much from essentially the most tragic thing that has ever happened to him.
Horace’s parents, Martha Alfonso and Allan Bollea, The Hulkster’s real-life brother, would find yourself separating when Horace was only a toddler, resulting in Martha getting a brand new boyfriend as Horace grew up. In 1986, Martha’s relationship would come to a brutal end when she was murdered by her boyfriend, something that The Hulkster has talked about in his autobiographies, explaining how he desired to look out for Horace when he arrived in WCW given every part that had happened to him. This might ultimately be one more reason why people didn’t connect with him in WCW as people simply saw him as someone who was only on TV because he was Hulk Hogan’s nephew.
Once WCW went out of business, Horace’s wrestling profession began to wind down, and even after a transient spell in WWE’s developmental system in 2002, he ended up retiring from the business that very same yr, opting to work for a construction company as an alternative. Horace has since gone on to have a family of his own, having two daughters, but seems to don’t have any intentions of getting back into wrestling, despite his family name having a lot weight to it.
Alan Bollea
We have already mentioned what happened to Horace Hogan’s mother, however the tragedy didn’t stop there as Allan Bollea, Hulk’s brother, also had an incredibly tragic end to his life.
In the identical yr when Martha Alfonso was brutally murdered by her boyfriend, Allan would tragically pass away from a drug overdose on the age of just 38. Allan and his brother were extremely close, with Allan reportedly being an enormous fan of his brother’s work, which is why The Hulkster is so protective of his late brother given the rumors surrounding him.
Very similar to Martha’s death, Hogan covered his brother’s passing in his autobiographies, but during an appearance on Theo Von’s “This Past Weekend” podcast, Hogan revealed that there have been rumors that his brother was a part of a biker gang and that played an element in his death. Nevertheless, that wasn’t the case and Hogan confirmed that it was not only a drug overdose that killed his brother, but it surely was the incontrovertible fact that he was in desperate need of help and nobody got here to his rescue.
This might ultimately result in Hogan actually taking Horace, and his two sisters, in under his own roof and helping raise them while also attempting to work a full-time WWE schedule. Hogan would admit that by the point he took his brother’s kids in, he was in serious pain resulting from the variety of shows he was working and regarded taking time away from the business, but now that he had three kids to take care of, he felt as if that he couldn’t leave wrestling under any circumstances. Hogan will not be one to talk on his brother that much, but you get the sense that his famous catchphrase probably means more to him than some would have originally suspected.
Mike Awesome
Not a reputation that many individuals would have expected to be included in something like this, but Mike Awesome is a distant relative of Hulk Hogan through marriage as he’s Horace Hogan’s cousin, continuously crossing paths together with his cousin during their shared time in FMW together, in addition to WCW in 2000, which saw Awesome interact with The Hulkster as well.
Awesome is usually considered probably the most impressive big men within the history of wrestling, having the athleticism to match some cruiserweight wrestlers, while also having the raw power to powerbomb a few of the heaviest performers to ever step in a hoop. Awesome rose to fame in america through his time in Extreme Championship Wrestling, where his long-standing rivalry with Masato Tanaka was heralded as one among the best in company history. He could be the person to take the ECW World Heavyweight Championship from Taz in 1999 but would defect to WCW in 2000, while still under contract and holding the corporate’s top title, leaving him with an advanced legacy amongst ECW fans.
Many ECW fans forgave him after his impressive showing on the One Night Stand pay-per-view in 2005, where his match with Tanaka not only got a standing ovation but additionally acted as his retirement match as he would call time on his profession in February 2006. Sadly, one yr after he retired from wrestling, Awesome took his own life as his body was found hanging in his home in Tampa, Florida, with the reasoning behind his death being the collapse of his marriage that saw him arrested and jailed for domestic abuse, and being told by his wife that she was leaving him while he was incarcerated, leading him to turn into very depressed and eventually suicidal.
Hulk Hogan
In terms of talking in regards to the tragic side of the Hogan family, there’s nothing more fitting than ending it on the WWE Hall of Famer himself, because the very fact of the matter is that the autumn from grace that Hulk Hogan has had over time is a tragedy in itself.
We have already mentioned the assorted sex scandals that he’s been involved in, the revelation that he’s a self-proclaimed racist, and the incontrovertible fact that even his family hates him is de facto just the tip of the iceberg relating to Hogan’s legacy in the fashionable climate of wrestling. He has made a boatload of enemies inside the wrestling business over time for quite a lot of reasons, fans of TNA still have not forgiven him (or Eric Bischoff) for nearly killing the corporate within the 2010s, and even non-wrestling fans see him endorsing the present President of america Donald Trump and consider that if he’s like that, everyone should be, simply because of how necessary he’s to wrestling.
Everyone has their very own skeletons of their closet, but Hogan’s closet has overflowed lately, and the response he got on “Raw” earlier this yr is the culmination of how far he has fallen as an icon on this business. In any case, we have already listed numerous explanation why so many individuals hate him, and the incontrovertible fact that someone as iconic and as necessary to the wrestling industry is as despised as Hogan is is perhaps essentially the most tragic a part of his entire life. Hogan and his family have lived the vast majority of their lives within the limelight, and if there’s one thing that individuals know in regards to the entertainment industry, it’s that it could possibly chew people up and spit them out.
