The Tragedy Of Brooke Hogan

There is no family of a wrestler so consistently in the headlines as Hulk Hogan's family, from marital drama, to near-fatal car accidents, to social media rants leading to allegations of abuse. Despite being in the center of all the drama back in the days of the reality series "Hogan Knows Best," Hulk and Linda Hogan's oldest child, daughter Brooke Hogan, has attempted to distance herself from her famous family within recent years. Many of her fans would argue Brooke has good reason to do so, considering the near-constant actions of her father and even more recently, her mother.

Brooke was born in May 1988, as her father was riding the wave of "Hulkamania" into stardom in the then-WWF. She and her brother, Nick, grew up in Clearwater, Florida, and Brooke took dance classes and voice and piano lessons growing up. She was signed to a record label in 2002 at just 14 years old. The family foray into the reality television world with "Hogan Knows Best" began in July 2005, and after its debut, the family drama kicked into overdrive as Brooke was attempting to get her music career off the ground.

Her life has seen its far share of tragic moments since the divorce of her parents in July 2009. While she now may be living happily alongside her husband, hockey player Steven Oleksy, and their twin babies, Brooke had to go through it in life to eventually escape the drama. From a failed attempt at a wrestling career, to the incident where her father was caught in a racist rant against Brooke's then-boyfriend, to the most recent familial spat where Brooke alleged abuse at the hands of her family after her mother posted a video of herself crying out on social media, Brooke's life hasn't always been glamorous.

The bad behavior of the Hogan family first really hit headlines back in 2007 when Nick Hogan, 17 years old at the time, was arrested on charges of reckless driving involving serious bodily injury after a street racing crash in Clearwater, just a month after the final episode of "Hogan Knows Best" aired on VH1. According to police, Nick was racing a 1998 Toyota Supra owned by his father against a Dodge Viper driven by a friend. Nick lost control of his vehicle and hit a palm tree in the median of the road. The crash seriously injured his friend and passenger, John Graziano, who wasn't wearing his seatbelt at the time of the crash.

Both men in the Supra were flown to a local hospital. Doctors diagnosed the then-22-year-old Graziano with a severe brain injury after the crash. The injuries he suffered were expected to leave him in a nursing home for the remainder of his life, but he returned home in September 2009, where he receives full-time care. Nick pleaded no contest in May 2008 and was sentenced to eight months in county jail.

While Nick's sister wasn't involved in the crash, it still deeply affected her. In July 2008, Brooke sat down for an interview with Access Hollywood's Maria Menounos and said everything had been "pretty nuts." She admitted that she had broken down over the weight of the drama in her family, especially after her brother was jailed. Brooke told Access Hollywood that she and Nick had been inseparable and she was used to protecting him. She also revealed that two months into his sentence, Nick was having trouble with other inmates.

While Nick was serving his time in the Pinellas County Jail for the near-fatal accident, Hulk and Linda Hogan's relationship was falling apart and the pair decided to divorce after 26 years. The divorce was extremely messy, due to Linda's claims that Hulk cheated on her with a friend of Brooke's, when their eldest daughter was 21 years old at the time. 

The woman, then-33-year-old Christine Plante, spoke to The National Enquirer about the affair and said her relationship with Hulk started when he and his wife knew their marriage was ending. Plante told the outlet that Linda had left Hulk already, despite no official divorce papers being filed at the time. Plante also told The National Enquirer that she gave a note to Brooke apologizing for her actions and she was sad to have lost her as a friend.

Brooke posted to her Myspace page with a statement asking her fans to keep her and her family in their prayers. According to celebrity gossip blogger Perez Hilton in a since-deleted story posted to his website, Brooke posted another message, but deleted it, and addressed the issue more directly. Brooke allegedly mentioned a best friend and one of her closest family members "betraying her together."

"You could MAYBE find it in yourself to forgive one day... but you will NEVER forget the hurt they caused you," Brooke allegedly wrote in the Myspace post.

Despite Plante publicly admitting to the affair, Hulk accused his ex-wife of making the story up in order to stay relevant. Hulk's lawyer released a statement at the time that said, in part, "Linda Hogan will do virtually anything to keep herself in the public spotlight."

Brooke may still be attempting to dabbling in music, specifically country, now that she and her husband live in Nashville, but her music career never really took off when she was younger, outside of one hit alongside rapper Paul Wall and the initial song that got her noticed. She signed with Trans Continental Records in 2002 and released her first single, "Everything to Me" that summer. The song made it to number 97 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and later that year, Brooke went on tour with Hilary Duff and the Backstreet Boys. However, her label went bankrupt following the tour and he debut album was never released.

Her first big hit was the song "About Us" and featured Wall rapping on the track. The song premiered on the second season finale of "Hogan Knows Best" and shot up to number 33 on the Billboard Hot 100. Her first album, "Undiscovered," was finally released in October 2006. It debuted at number 28 on the Billboard 200. Hogan's second album was titled "The Redemption" and was released in the summer of 2009 in the middle of the serious family drama. Brooke dropped a mixtape titled "Judgment Day" ahead of the album's release to promote it, but "The Redemption" didn't do nearly as well as "Undiscovered" for the young pop star.

Brooke attempted to revive her singing career in July 2015 when she released an alternative country song titled "Girlfriend." The song was followed by two EPs and another new pop single, "Touch My Body," in November 2019. Hogan has been dabbling in music as recently as 2024 when she released a few singles, including a song called "Boys Trip," but nothing since "About Us" has picked up steam for the eldest Hogan child.

Brooke's music career was much more successful than her forays into the professional wrestling world, however. She only appeared for WWE once well after the rise of "Hulkamania" and never trained to be a in-ring competitor. 

She appeared on the July 2006 episode of "Saturday Night's Main Event XXXIII" when she was just 18 years old. In the angle, Randy Orton flirted with her before challenging her father to a match at SummerSlam. The budding pop star and Orton flirted throughout the night. Hulk would go on to face Orton at "The Biggest Party of the Summer," but the rest of his family would not be involved. Brooke gave the professional wrestling industry another shot in May 2012 when she signed with Total Nonstop Action when her dad was attempting to run the show behind-the-scenes alongside Eric Bischoff. Brooke was signed to be an on-screen authority figure, as well as a backstage consultant for the Knockouts.

She appeared on TNA TV throughout the middle of 2012 and made matches for the Knockouts division. In her biggest storyline, she got into a secret relationship with Bully Ray when his Aces & Eights stable was feuding with Hulk and Sting. Brooke agreed to marry Bully Ray in storyline, but the in-ring wedding descended into chaos as wrestling weddings usually do. After the end of their story, which involved a divorce, Brooke Hogan and TNA amicably split in August 2013, with Hulk to follow in October.

Though they may be estranged these days, Brooke initially went to bat for her father in 2015 when he was caught up in his sex tape scandal that revealed him making racist remarks, something to which Hulk admitted in audio transcripts that were released by The National Enquirer. In the audio, Hulk was speaking with Heather Clem, the wife of his former friend Bubba the Love Sponge and the woman with whom he was secretly filmed having sex, and ranting to her seemingly about his daughter dating a Black man. Hulk said that Brooke was making "some real bad decisions" and "jumped sides on him" after he spent millions on her music career. He admitted he didn't know Brooke was "f***ing the Black guy's son," and said he was racist "to a point." Hulk used the "N" word multiple times in his rant.

After the transcripts were made public, Brooke stood by her dad's side and even defended him online. She wrote a poem and posted it to her Facebook account, though it has since been deleted, titled "If You Knew My Father." She said in her writing that Hulk never intended to hurt his family or fans. She also defended her dad in an Entertainment Tonight interview where she said he was best friends with Black men like Mr. T and Dennis Rodman, so he couldn't be racist. She said in both the poem and the interview that things can "sometimes slip" and Hulk chose "ill-fitting words" for the situation when he was venting.

Brooke's defense of her father is something that she seemingly alluded to in later years when she posted an Instagram statement following a social media meltdown of her mother's.

As the drama within her family continued to grow over the years, Brooke distanced herself from the rest of the Hogans as well as the public eye. She privately married hockey player Steve Oleksy in 2022, and their nuptials were kept quiet until Brooke confirmed the news on her own Instagram account in January 2024. The following year on January 15, she gave birth to twins, a boy and a girl named Oliver and Molly. Brooke began sharing more about her children on Instagram and also wrote about the complications she experience during birth.

Brooke said that doctors got her babies out in around 15 minutes, but her surgery lasted over two hours. She said she lost two and a half liters of blood and almost needed a blood transfusion. Brooke explained that her husband was in the room when their children were born and remained with them when things got serious with her health. Brooke was stabilized and she and her babies were released from the hospital in the days following their birth.

She announced Oliver and Molly's arrival in an Instagram post a few days after their birth and few days before posting about the complications she experienced. Prior to that, her feed gave no indication she was pregnant, which she noted in their birth announcement when she wrote "just been staying off socials cooking these two cuties." She would go on to share more about her pregnancy and how her body changed and revealed her babies were born at a hefty 8.9 and 7.9 pounds.

The first inkling of a fraction within the Hogan family was Brooke's disappearance from the public eye, but the family's issue were brought to the forefront in headlines when Brooke skipped her father's most recent marriage to yoga instructor Sky Daily in September 2023. After word got out that she wasn't present for the ceremony, Brooke posted a statement on Instagram about her relationship with her family. She noted in her post that she missed the wedding due to personal reasons, though she didn't get in to specifics outside of the fact her family dynamic had changed over the years.

"As we all experience this with our own families, the dynamics of a family unit continuously change over the years," she wrote in her Instagram post. "For my own journey to healing and happiness, I have chosen to create some distance between myself and my family and am focusing on people and things that heal my heart and align with my own personal beliefs, goals, and values."

Brooke ended the post with a note that she wished her father well alongside a heart emoji. Reports indicated that the wedding ceremony was a small affair with Hulk and Daily's closest friend and family there, including Nick Hogan and Daily's three children, and it seemed like Brooke wanted to get ahead of things with her Instagram post before further rumors began swirling about her absence.

The most recent incident putting the Hogan family in headlines was a dramatic social media rant posted by Linda Hogan in March. In the video that remains live on TMZ, a tearful Linda went on a rant that she said was inspired by being lonely that day. After acknowledging it have been over 15 years since her divorce from Hulk, Linda called her family "the worst mess."

"Brooke doesn't talk to us," Linda lamented. "She's had twins. She got married. She didn't tell us. She had twins. She didn't tell us. She had a huge fight with Terry. I don't know how that reflected on to me but she cut me out, too. I haven't talked to her in seven years, almost eight years now."

Brooke took to her Instagram account once again and issued a lengthy statement after her mother's rant. In the statement, Brooke said she wanted to address "the tip of a very large iceberg" about her family. She said Linda's video was "mild" to what she had seen and experienced throughout her life, though did acknowledge her mother had been through her fair share of trauma. Brooke noted that nothing Hulk did had anything to do with her relationship with Linda, and vice-versa.

She alleged that she had experienced "EXTREME" verbal and mental abuse that "would frequently turn physical" in her life. She said that sometimes, "it's not by the person you would assume" and noted that abuse comes in "all shapes and sizes." She also wrote about the massive blows to her career and personal life caused by her family's bad behavior and lies.

Rather than letting things go, Linda took to her Facebook page following Brooke's statement to attempt to get the last word. She alleged assault at the hands of her daughter and said Brooke was once so drunk she broke Linda's collarbone. Linda alluded to "many stories" like the one she alleged. She said she wouldn't be defending herself against Brooke's allegations of abuse, though Brooke didn't name her mother specifically in her statement.

Brooke then posted photographic proof on her Instagram that her mother had indeed met her husband. She said that her mother's accusations against her were serious and said that her name was continuously brought up in the constant drama of her family. She said she had plenty of people who knew the truth, including her husband, who posted a statement to his own Instagram account. He said he couldn't stand by and allow anyone to hurt his wife any longer. He addressed Linda only as "Jane Doe," and seemingly addressed Hulk in the post as well.

The Oleksys haven't posted anything or spoken further about Brooke's ongoing familial drama, but Linda spoke to TMZ and said her daughter's actions of cutting off her family would will have long-term consequences on her twins and even voiced her concerns that they won't know their grandfather was the famous Hulk Hogan. Despite Linda saying her ex-husband was distraught at everything, he took to his own Instagram page to throw shade at his family. He posted a now-deleted video of himself and Daily eating popcorn alongside a caption about getting ready for a new reality show.