He might be used to playing muscle-bound tough guys in his movies, but Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson has shown his vulnerable side.
The WWE megastar-turned-movie-icon has revealed the biggest regret of his life in an emotional social media post.
Posting on X, Johnson paid tribute to his late father, Rocky Johnson, who died in 2020.
"My regret in this life is that I never had a chance to say goodbye to him, because he died suddenly," The Rock wrote. "I regret not reconciling our complicated father/son shit before I lost him.
"Raised me with tough fatherly love and an even tougher hand. The more I live life, the more grateful I am for it."
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Rocky Johnson was a professional wrestler and, alongside partner Tony Atlas, he was one half of the first Black tag-team champions in WWF (now WWE) history in the 1980s.
When The Rock broke into the wrestling business in the late 1990s, he used an amalgam of the names of his father and his maternal grandfather – the High Chief Peter Maivia – to come up with his own ring name, Rocky Maivia.
In his post to X, Johnson also included a video of his father in action. As the camera pans away from the ring, a young Dwayne Johnson is seen watching on from the stands.
And Johnson played his father in one of his early acting gigs. In an episode of late-90s teen sitcom That 70s Show, The Rock appeared as Rocky Johnson at a wrestling event the show's characters attended.
Johnson and his father had a strained relationship for many years but appeared to have become much closer in the years before the ex-tag champion's death.
The movie star bought his dad a house in Florida, where he spent his final years before passing away at the age of 75.
"He came up the hard way, and trail-blazed for all of us men of color - in any sport & level of entertainment," Johnson said in tribute to his father. "But it was also very important to him to pave the way for all men, any color - it didn't matter.
"See you down the road, Soulman."
Topics: The Rock, Dwayne Johnson, WWE, Wrestling
Ryan Baldi