y enjoyed this. you are one impressive guy. thank you so much, dr. phil. well, i'm really flattered that you wanted to do this. i'm honored. - well, thank you so much. - i am honored, thanks. all right. harvey levin: the objects people choose to keep in their home define who they are. this is... i'm harvey levin. this is a story about the babe ruth of professional wrestling. the incredible hulk hogan! harvey: hulk hogan put an entire industry on the map, but not without paying a heavy price. hulk hogan: the knees are fake. the hips are fake. the back's full of metal. harvey: hulk hogan became one of the most recognizable and beloved figures in the world, but behind the scenes, terry bollea's life was crumbling. you literally had a gun in your mouth. yeah. harvey: an illicit sex tape would bring this american hero to his knees. you used the n-word.

if this tape wasn't leaked, do you think you'd be using that word today? but the scandal that could have broken him actually redefined him. i made a whole switch from, you know, being negative that is i'd work hard. i'm in check with myself. i'm happy, brother. harvey: hulk hogan, a life of the highest highs and the lowest lows. oh, my gosh. - it is so good to see you. - hey, my brother. usually i see you in gold's gym. that's true, in los angeles. well, we're far, far away. have a seat. well, thank you for coming. so, um, i want to spend some time going through your life. but i want to do it with things you chose to keep over the years that are important to you and help define who you are. so i'm looking at that. what is it? my dad worked construction his whole life. - right. - he dug ditches. he put the big storm drainage in the roads. this was in florida. and when i was about five or six years old, my memory is having this little gas truck.

-it was pink. - harvey:why save that? what does it represent? it symbolizes how i grew up. i grew up in a very small, square little house, 650 square feet. and he had a tough life. my mom was a housewife, and i kind of kept this truck to make me realize i always wanted to work hard but i always wanted to make sure that i raised the bar. you know, and i never wanted to be in situation like that, where-- i remember them living check to check. there was always talk about my dad's income and always talk about what bills to pay. i just made a decision that i never wanted to be in a situation like that. what are your thoughts right now, mrs. hogan? your son, the new world champion. i'm so excited i don't know what to say. you are not a tough guy by nature. - no. - 'cause it's odd that you're this-- the icon of wrestling, and you weren't really a tough guy growing up. hulk: because i was fat, and my head was so big. i got teased, but i wasn't a kid that wanted to fight. i was always really mellow, and i would avoid any type of confrontation.

even through high school, i never got in any trouble with fighting. i didn't fit in. i went all the way through high school, and i think my senior year i finally had a girlfriend. i think because i was so heavy, you know? - it was just tough. - when did you lose weight? right when i was getting out of high school. i started eating burger king once a day and drinking diet cokes, and i started getting into lifting weights. how'd your mom influence you? hulk: my mom played piano, and she was our music teacher in the neighborhood. and so she would play all the time so i got real interested in music and i was very young, about 11 or 12 years old. my dad bought me this really expensive guitar. - is that it? - yeah, that's the guitar. - that's the guitar? can i see it? - yeah. and you played this? uh, yeah, i did for many years. you were in a band? i was in several bands. let me see this thing. this is amazing. this is really cool-looking. - yup, still plays. - ( harvey laughs )

was your passion music or sports? my passion was doing anything to avoid working a real job. i was out on the weekends playing music and making money. harvey: your brother, he had a very rough going in life. hulk: he had a tough time with running around getting in trouble, you know? he, uh, got married to an older lady, had a beautiful family and passed away quite young. he just went down the wrong road. and got into drugs. - yes. - harvey: and trouble. yes. i can see it is still emotional for you and he died many years ago. as hard as this is to say, some people are in your life just to teach you life lessons, and when i look at my brother i look at nothing but positive stuff. i wish he was here, i keep a picture of him up in my house, a couple of them, and i wish he was here, but now i understand that he was in my life

to teach me a life lesson. what's the lesson? of how to correct myself and reboot, which i've done over and over and over again until i'm finally happy with myself. how did he die? um... i'd rather not talk about that. fair enough. so, all in all, your childhood. um, happy, challenging? i look back on it now and wow, it was-- it was pretty darn rough. i mean, it could have been better but i didn't realize at the time that there was anything wrong. so i had a great childhood. - harvey:this beach shop is awesome! - hulk:thank you. well, this is like the transition. you know, i'll always be part of wrestling so there's a lot of wrestling stuff in here and you know, stuff from my career and memorabilia plus since i'm on the beach and i'm the official beach bum around here we're making the transition with the beach hats and the board shorts

so it's a beach shop for everybody that comes here to orlando. what are these? okay, these are the boots-- as you can see they're pretty worn out-- that i wore in "wrestle mania 3," and body-slammed andre the giant. harvey: this was to me the biggest moment that i can remember in your career. this-- you picked up a 700-pound guy. hulk: yes, sir. this moment etched wrestling in the wwf/wwe in history that we were not going anywhere. this was a huge gamble. we didn't know if we would pull if off. 94,000 people. i do not understand how you can lift a 700-pound guy in the air. with a lot of help from him. it was a situation, if you watched the tape, when i went to go underneath andre-- ( roars ) when andre was coming, his arm went around my neck. - right. - well, actually this way. - went around my neck. - oh, he helped you. and he pushed up on my thigh. announcer: we're seeing what this guy is really made of! what he is! the greatest professional athlete in the world today. look at this!

in front of him! i don't believe it! i don't believe it! hulk dropping a big leg! over for the giant! it's over! - harvey:but still. - hulk:oh yeah, but it was okay when i got into here. and then when i got into here, i had all this weight and i had to turn him. and that's how i tore my biceps. both biceps are torn. harvey: so that moment is when you tore the bicep? hulk: yeah, yeah. when i tore 'em. harvey: what about the back? well, my inserts-- and up here where my back's supposed to-- i've got a big hole in my back from turning him, but, uh-- was that worth it? - yeah. - oh, god. it was a one-time deal for me. yeah, one-time deal. but that moment changed my whole career because hulk hogan was off and running and hulkamania was off and running but that put me on a rocket ship. so, when you were growing up, you didn't like contact sports. - no, not at all. - you shied away from them. not at all. i didn't like any type of confrontation. so, how'd you get into wrestling? i was a huge fan. i mean, i just loved it.

i grew up watching it. but you never joined the wrestling team in high school. no, sir. i had a really good band. and right when we were getting ready to hit the road, one guy was getting married, one guy's wife had a baby and nobody wanted to go. i said, "that's it, i'm done, i'm gonna go be a wrestler." so the worst thing that i did was i went all around tampa telling everybody i was gonna be a wrestler. the first day they took me down there, they broke my leg on purpose the first day. if wrestling were not fake, would you have done it? at the time, i didn't know-- - you thought it was real. - oh, yeah. i didn't know it was predetermined back then. i guess when they break your leg, that kind of confirms it, right? but yet you didn't like contact sports. that's right. so i don't understand that. i don't either. - ( laughter ) - i just love wrestling. i was intertwined in society-- americana. i was americana at the time. so why flip it and become a bad guy? well, a lot of reasons. you have to reinvent yourself in the wrestling business and i wanted to be a bad guy because i thought i could make these good guys hulk hogans.

i would get booed so much that i could give them my oomph. that's when i reinvented myself. that's when i said, all the training, the prayers, the vitamins, all the stuff i did for the kids, i did it for the money. you fans can stick it, brother! yeah! because... if it wasn't for hulk hogan, you people wouldn't be here! hulk: i thought i'd be the ultimate bad guy, which i was. i'd beat guys up and then i'd cower like a chicken and beg for forgiveness and wanna shake hands and blow-- cheap shot 'em, you know? but the people cheered me and it backfired on me. i became hollywood hogan, that bad guy, in the back, with the black beard. and people were cheering me out of the building. it was amazing. the lines had gotten blurred at the time, so there was this big gray area in entertainment that the fans thought it was cool to cheer for the bad guy, hollywood hulk hogan, so i became bigger than ever again. ( announcer shouting indistinctly )

it's kind of a statement about america, isn't it? that all of a sudden the bad guy gets cheered. yes, sir. it's kind of scary. i've had 17 surgeries in the last 10 years. oh, my god. what's not original here? hulk: the knees are fake, the hips are fake, um, the back's full of metal. and part of my face is full of metal. i didn't get the memo about the fake wrestling. - i was gonna say. - yeah, i missed that part. i didn't get the memo about the fake wrestling. there are times when our need to connect really matters. to keep customers and employees in the know. to keep business moving. comcast business is prepared for times like these. powered by the nation's largest gig-speed network. to help give you the speed, reliability, and security you need. tools to manage your business from any device, anywhere. and a team of experts - here for you 24/7. we've always believed in the power of working together.

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okay, i think i know what they are, but tell me. voila. these are my very, very, very, very, very last set of crutches. - your last set? - yeah. when i first sent my first picture to jennifer of me in the gym i was posing, showing my tricep, and behind me there must have been 80 crutches, 'cause i saved all the crutches-- you get two at a time, by the way-- from all the surgeries, and even since i've been with jennifer, i've had 17 surgeries in the last ten years. - oh, my god. - hulk:my knees, i've had three or four surgeries on my knees, each knee before i had 'em replaced. harvey: what's not original here? hulk: the knees are fake, the hips are fake. the back's full of metal, and part of my face is full of metal.

oh, my god. tell me about the injuries. i didn't get the memo about the fake wrestling. - i was gonna say. - yeah, i missed that part. it's pre-determined, you know who's gonna win or lose, but what people don't understand is that it's very physical. and back in the day in the 70's when i first started, i still got, like, teeth marks on my finger. - there's a eyetooth there-- - i can see it! teeth marks of people trying to bite my fingers. oh, my god! had my eye reconstructed a couple times from getting hit in the face, nose broken 13 times, all these teeth, these fake teeth have been knocked out six times so, it's been a wild ride. i remember reading things that you were 6'7" or 6'8". - yeah. ( laughs ) - i gotta say, you don't seem 6'7" or 6'8" and i don't know whether there's a connection here. - hulk: you're killing me. - harvey:you see, not that you're not tall, - hulk:yeah. - harvey:but you don't seem 6'7" to me. i was 6'7" before the "rocky" movie. - how tall are you now? - i'm 6'4" and a half. how could you lose almost 3 inches? fast forward 35 years later? dropping a leg drop every night on my spine,

two knee replacements, two hip replacements, nine back surgeries. when you get older, you kinda crunch up a little bit anyway. all those things added up so you know, it's very physical. there are some wrestlers and maybe a lot of wrestlers who deal with this with alcohol and drugs because of pain. - yeah. - how common is that? it's very common. when i was wrestling full time, all of us did. that was the norm to survive. it's hard to believe when you see somebody this big that steroids is not kind of the common drug in the ring. okay. - you ever do it? - yes. - yes. - there was a time you said no. yeah, one time. i've trained 20 years, 2 hours a day to look like i do. but things that i am not is i'm not a steroid abuser, and i do not use steroids.

and actually when i said no, i wasn't on steroids at the time, so i was playing with words. knowing what you've gone through, if you could make a decision again on whether to go into wrestling having become the bionic man, would you do it again? commentator 1: a running clothesline! and macho going after the eye! - oh, no! - commentator 2:a fly! commentator 1: he fly-plants hogan! oh, yeah. i'd do it all over again. so tell me what that is. well, this is the second or third attempt by stallone to get ahold of me for the "rocky 3" movie. vince mcmahon sr.'s secretary got a handwritten note. well, i called him right away, and the whole story is i flew out there, got in the ring with him. we did a couple things. he tried to hit me a couple times. "see if you can grab me pretty quick, big guy." -which i did. - harvey:this was an audition. hulk: yeah, and they were filming everything. and so, i didn't have an agent,

never had done anything before. he goes, "i'll give you $10,000 to do the movie." i went, "nah, i want $15,000." so i did it for $14,000. - no. - yeah. wait a minute, he negotiated you down from 15? ( chuckles ) well, yeah... i apologize. first of all, you should have gone for way more than 15. well, i didn't know. ( cheering ) where are my love slaves out there? thunderlips is here, in the flesh, baby! now the character was great for you know, the females. it's the ultimate male, thunderlips. look at those lips. it helped you get laid. i'm talking about it helped me attract the opposite sex. good match. hey, why'd you get so crazy on me out there? that's the name of the game. you ended up on the cover of "sports illustrated." i can't get over that, because wrestlers weren't on that magazine. and to be on the cover, that must have been a moment for you. ah, it's never happened since. i've been the only wrestler ever to be on the cover.

and at the time we had not deregulated wrestling, which means we didn't tell the people it was an actual exhibition and we know who's gonna win or lose at the time. we were still fighting that fight, you know, saying, "this is a real sport." and i think hulkamania just got so popular and it was a such a cult following that "sports illustrated" didn't really have a choice. what was so crazy is when i went back and i wrestled the iron sheik, it was a perfect storm. iran was holding, like, 400 hostages at the time. the iron sheik was really the real deal. he was the shah of iran's bodyguard, he was the real deal. and i was doing all-american hulkamania thing: tan, full head of blonde hair, the real american, so, it was like the perfect time for this thing to take off. harvey:and it became really almost a show of patriotism in weird way, right? yes, sir, it sure was. commentator: and now, world wrestling federation heavyweight champion, the incredible hulk hogan!

i think changed the sport and the crowd because you were the first true entertainer. and i did that because i was not the greatest wrestler. i wasn't the greatest technical wrestler, but i'd had enough that i knew how to create emotion, how to create excitement, and tell a good story when i was in there. and i just prided myself on telling stories. what was the biggest perk of being a celebrity? the biggest perk of being a celebrity... probably would have been at the airports. harvey: what? you got through faster? ( laughs ) hulk:well, you'd get through faster but then when you got to the gate, there'd be so much chaos because i'd stand next to-- "oh, is the plane on time?" and we'd get swarmed by so many people, the gate agent would go, "get him on the plane as soon as you can." harvey: that's funny. biggest drawback. biggest drawback, having to maintain and just really be cool and calm when it got extra, extra, extra, extra personal.

they get me, like, caged in and i can't go nowhere. why can't they just calm down a little bit? because you're hulk hogan. i'm hulk hogie. when you're sitting there with your wife and kids and you're eating dinner and, "oh, hulk hogan, i want an autograph! i'm your biggest fan," and their pack of cigarettes would fall in your food. - good to see you. - how are you? - are you enjoying your steak? - i'm trying. you just had to go, "i love you, brother. i'll take that picture and sign an autograph with you after i finish eating." there was a low point in all of this where you literally had a gun in your mouth. how did you get out of that? well, i got to a point where everything kinda hit me at the same time. so how'd you get out of that? i made friends with laila ali. laila ali in some ways saved your life. i really believe that, that if she hadn't called just to say hello... it might have changed.

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harvey: so, what's this? this is a card from my soulmate, jennifer. - harvey:your wife. - hulk:my wife. yes, my wife. and this is a letter she wrote me. - harvey:when was it written? - hulk:oh, my gosh. well, this letter was written 12-14-15. i've known jennifer almost ten years now. so, um, this on our fifth anniversary and here's has a really cool passage in here. "you are my best friend. i am very proud of you for how you've handled the different challenges that have come up. now i feel it's time for you to be rewarded for staying in faith, time for you to help people even more. i love you so much each day. i'm totally grateful for being blessed with such a wonderful husband. love you for life after life after life, bird." - can i take you way back? - sure. so, jennifer is not your first wife. you were married actually once before to linda. what attracted you to linda? i just filmed the "rocky" movie and i was hanging out with one of my buddies that went

to high school with me here in florida. i just saw linda, was attracted to her. you know, she was a beautiful-looking lady and she was just alive with energy, you know. harvey: was she attracted to terry or hulk? i don't know the answer to that. i just think that as the pressure mounted and we got older and the kids get older, we just grew apart. was it coincidental that the marriage crumbled around the same time as the reality show? you know, i don't think you can put those two together like that. - what's up? - i can't live like this, terry! every day, it's drama. it's just ridiculous. in case you can't tell, i've had it, okay? i'm spent. - i got it, i got it. - i don't want to make it work anymore. - i'm like over it! - well, i'm done with it. i knew that one of the problems in our marriage was linda, she said, "well, i've helped you all these years

and you know, i didn't have a career." and i looked at the reality show as a calculated risk because my marriage was already starting to implode and things weren't good at all and i thought that maybe if we did a reality show, everybody would get busy, have a huge net worth, feel great about themselves. "oh, man, isn't that great? get a good show..." and it would just make things just channel in a different direction. that didn't happen. no, it didn't. it didn't. harvey: you know, when people get divorced a lot of times, you split things 50/50 down the middle, - hulk:yeah. - harvey:and you move on. i read that you gave way more than 50. that was a big deal. hulk: it was a huge deal. my understanding was it was about 70% you gave up. ( clears throat ) there was a low point in all of this where you literally had a gun in your mouth. how did you get out of that? well, i got to a point where everything kind of hit me at the same time: the divorce, my whole world falling apart, both of the kids were with linda. and that's how i ended up playing with a gun. so, how'd you get out of that?

i made friends with laila ali and during the day i had several phone calls and i picked it up and said, "hey, i'm just checking on you, i wanna make sure everything's cool. you know, we haven't talked," because we were doing "american gladiators" together. - harvey:right. - i said, "everything's fine, everything's good." i'm crying, you know, sitting in the bathroom. did she have a sense? she knew something was wrong with me. so she literally calls you when you're holding this gun. - yes. - wow. and just her saying hello to me and saying, "hey, we're just checking. i wanna make sure everything's okay," that pretty much woke me up. in that moment, i said, "you know what? there are a lot of good people out there." so, laila ali in some ways saved your life. i really believe that, that if she hadn't called just to say hello, you know... it might have changed. have you told her that? i can't remember if we've talked or not. so let's talk about jennifer. tell me how she changed your life. hulk: oh, my gosh. she just, um--