Brooke Hogan revealed when she and her father, Hulk Hogan, were last in touch before his surprising death.
“During the last two years, I had to step away to protect my heart,” Brooke, 37, wrote via Instagram on Tuesday, July 29.
Brooke explained that the estrangement happened after she and her husband, former NHL player Steve Oleksy, relocated to Florida to be near Hulk as he was dealing with ongoing health issues.
“He was getting older,” Brooke said. “I wanted to be there as much as possible. We had been through almost 25 surgeries together, and then all of a sudden he didn’t want me at surgeries … everything started getting covered in a thick veil. It was like there was a force field around him that I couldn’t get through.”
Brooke explained that “something shifted” within her father, which led to a “disconnect.”
“What followed were respectful disagreements that took an emotional toll on me,” Brooke said. “You have to imagine, along with this, everybody inserts their opinion, never really knowing the truth or walking in our shoes.”
The dissolution of her relationship with her father (real name Terry Bollea) happened at the same time Brooke and Oleksy, 39, were preparing to start their own family.
“I also got pregnant with our twins shortly after, and had a very complicated and scary c section with a hard recovery,” Brooke recalled. “I actually feel it was my daddy’s thick Bollea blood that kept me alive to be honest.”
Brooke and Oleksy — who married in June 2022 — welcomed their twins, Oliver and Molly, in January.
While Brooke and Hulk weren’t on speaking terms, she said she was still involved in his health struggles because she “knew his medical history like a roadmap.”
When Brooke was made aware that her father was having heart surgery earlier this year, she had Olesky “send over detailed notes from past hospital stays.”
“I knew, deeply, what that procedure meant,” Brooke said. “It was a final option, one that might buy time, but not much more.”
Hulk died on Thursday, July 24, after suffering cardiac arrest at his home in Clearwater, Florida.
He was 71 years old.
Despite the state of their relationship at the time of his death, Brooke closed her social media post by expressing gratitude for her father.
“All I ever wanted from my father was love, honesty and a deep connection,” Brooke wrote. “And for a few special years, I had that — with memories that will last a lifetime. My world is forever changed. But I’m deeply blessed with a loving husband and two beautiful children who remind me every day of life’s greatest gifts.”
She concluded, “I’m deeply grateful for the love, tributes, and memorials from his fans and friends. His life was one worth celebrating — and always will be.”