WWE's The Rock Opens Up Regarding Childhood On The Road With Dad Rocky Johnson

Though he is now one of the biggest stars in Hollywood, most wrestling fans are well aware that Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson got his start as a professional wrestler, following in the footsteps of his father, Rocky Johnson. It's been well-documented that Dwayne had a tumultuous relationship with Rocky, and in a recent profile by GQ, the man known as The Rock opened up regarding the childhood he spent on the road with his father.

"It was tough love with him," Johnson said. "Very little patience with s**t. And he came up in an era where he had to fight for everything. [He was a] Black pro wrestler at that time in the '60s and '70s, mainly throughout the South."

According to Johnson, Rocky had to develop a certain toughness to consistently perform in front of almost entirely white audiences across the southern United States, around the time of the Civil Rights movement. That toughness translated to a fraught relationship between father and son.

"[He] raised me with a tough hand," Johnson continued. "[He] didn't beat my ass or anything like that, but just our bonding was — at a very young age — 'You could come to the gym with me at five and six years old, but you just gotta sit.' So I sat in the gym and just watched him and his wrestler workout buddies work out."

By the time he reached the age of 6, Rocky began training Dwayne on the mat, instilling in him the basics of pro wrestling. Their relationship would grow more complicated over time, and Johnson discussed the fact that his parents were separated by the time he was 13. Similarly, Rocky was kicked out of his home at 13, with his mother siding with her alcoholic boyfriend over her son.

"That's a hard place to come back from," Johnson said. "That will inform how you love people and what you care for in life and how you care about people. So it was really f***ed up — that really damaged my dad. So his limited capacity to love is what raised me."

Johnson noted that he did not believe his father was happy that Dwayne entered the wrestling business, but he was proud of his son nonetheless. Rocky died in 2020, never having fully repaired his relationship with Dwayne. However, Dwayne doesn't seem to harbor negative feelings over the situation, which is something that changed after his father's death.

"We still had a contentious kind of complicated relationship when he was alive," Johnson stated. "He dies suddenly four years ago, and you don't get a chance to say goodbye, you don't get a chance to right the s**t that you want to [make] right. ... You look at things differently."

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit GQ with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.