Dwayne Johnson Shares How Dad Rocky ‘Completely Crossed the Line’ Before His Death

Dwayne Johnson is revisiting the final conversation he had with his late father Rocky Johnson.

When The Smashing Machine star Dwayne, 53, spoke with The New York Times magazine for a lengthy profiled published Sunday, Sept. 21, the actor and former professional wrestler recalled his tumultuous relationship with his father Rocky, who died at 75 in January 2020.

In the article, Dwayne noted that when he first read Rocky’s 2019 autobiography Soulman: The Rocky Johnson Story, he learned that his father had written a foreword to the book that was attributed to Dwayne without his son’s knowledge. As Dwayne told the outlet, the rest of the book featured similar misrepresentations of their father-son relationship. 

“Growing up with my dad, I know the truth to all these stories. And they’re not in this book,” Dwayne said of that book. “If the truth is blue, this story is red.”

“It just completely crossed the line,” he added. “It goes back to the attention, and the narcissism.”

According to the Times, Dwayne called Rocky to confront him about the book and also had the autobiography pulled from stores in the weeks after it was published. An article published by the wrestling news outlet Slam Wrestling in the days after Rocky’s death claimed that Rocky’s co-author never spoke with Dwayne about the book and that his audio interviews with Rocky featured the late wrestler giving him permission to write a foreword as Dwayne. 

Dwayne often shares tributes to his father on Instagram each August on his birthday and on Father’s Day in June. In 2023, Dwayne noted in an Instagram post on Father’s Day that he and Rocky were not on speaking terms at the time of Rocky’s death, but he did not go into details on social media. “Hard to reconcile stuff with your dad when he’s no longer here – but nonetheless, regardless of challenges or any struggle, my dad was a ‘life adapter,’ and he taught me to be the same,” he wrote as he marked Rocky’s birthday this past August.

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As Dwayne told the Times, he had just arrived on set for the first day of filming his 2021 Netflix movie Red Notice when he learned of Rocky’s death. “Wildly enough, my old man was just this amazing friend,” he said, after reflecting on his experience at Rocky’s funeral. “Complicated husband. Complicated dad. But an awesome friend to everyone else.”

“I think my dad’s capacity to love was very limited,” he added elsewhere in the piece. “He was kicked out when he was 13. Imagine that pain. And that’s the man who raised me. That was my dad.”

The Smashing Machine is in theaters Oct. 3.