Hulk Hogan’s painful decline

Hulk Hogan is a physical and emotional wreck, says Erik Hedegaard in Rolling Stone. At 55, he faces constant pain as a legacy of his years performing professional wrestling’s elaborate, bone-rattling choreography. “My tailbone is bent from landing on my ass, 400 times a year,” he says. “My back’s got all kinds of problems. My legs get numb. My hands are numb. My neck, too. I’ve got arthritis and scoliosis. I’m 6–4. I used to be 6–7.” At his peak, Hogan raked in $20 million a year; today, he has trouble paying his bills. To top things off, his wife of 23 years, Linda, has left him to take up with a pool boy. She’s living with him in the $18 million Florida mansion she used to share with Hogan, and has given him the keys to all of Hogan’s cars, motorcycles, and boats. “You live half a mile from the 20,0000-square-foot home you can’t go to anymore,” he complains. “You’re driving through downtown Clearwater and see a 19-year-old boy driving your Escalade, and you know that a 19-year-old boy is sleeping in your bed, with your wife, and going to the Four Seasons.” Hogan admits that revenge sometimes enters his mind. “I could have turned everything into a crime scene, like O.J., cutting everybody’s throat. I mean, I totally understand O.J. I get it.”

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