Wrestling the Hulk: My Life Against the Ropes

by Linda Hogan

  Brooke wanted to immediately jump on a plane and head to Los Angeles. She begged me to come with her. When I realized there was no calming her down, I went with her to the West Coast. During the plane ride to L.A., Brooke and I both wrote in our journals. I didn’t even tell Terry I left with her, but with all the events that led up to this point, I certainly had a lot on my mind to write about. We were both mad at Terry. We both felt betrayed. We both felt disappointed. We both had so many things to say. How could somebody act this way to his own family? I wrote all the things that came to my mind. My pen just flowed. I wrote down a list of words describing the kind of person I felt Terry had become.

  • Abusive

  • Controlling

  • Selfish

  • Demeaning

  • Disrespectful

  • Not trustworthy

  • Unfaithful

  • Liar

  • Childish

  • Noncommunicative

  • User

  • Dependent

  • Depressive

  • Manipulative

  • Plotting

  • Secretive

  • Self-centered

  • Conceited

  • Gloating

  • Calculating

  • Insecure

  • Sex addict

  • Violent

  • Sneaky

  • Unhappy

  • Cheater

  • Back stabber

  • Rude

  • Delusional

  • Victimizer

  • Self-consumed

  • Insensitive

  • On edge

  • Negative

  • Fear of change

  • Possessive

  • Brainwasher

  • Antagonistic

  • No morals

  • No sense of family

  I reread the list while I was writing this book, I still feel that Terry seems to represent every single one of these characteristics. The words just filled my head. I couldn’t write fast enough! It was scary. When you go through the list, it’s clear that these are the signs of a pathological liar and a narcissist.

  I had been victimized for two decades by a narcissist.

  AS THE SHOW ENDED, I WAS IN SUCH TURMOIL WITH TERRY. THE arguing got so bad we could hardly keep a civil game face on for the cameras. When I landed in Los Angeles, I didn’t want to go back. I told him to forget about the show. I was done.

  Terry called me and said that if I didn’t come back and do the reshoots that VH1 was threatening to sue: I just wanted to die. Honestly, I’d rather have drank bleach than gone back to face him again. I couldn’t pretend to be in a good mood and do an episode with him that was supposed to be happy when I really wanted to poke his eyes out! I decided not to do it. I realized it was another dangling of the carrot to get me to come back to Florida. But as he persisted about the possible lawsuit, I got scared. Very reluctantly I went back to Florida to finish the season.

  In order to stay positive, I needed to stay numb emotionally—like nothing bothered me. Because when I thought about everything in my life that I was missing, it made me so sad. I missed the emotional support of my husband. The love. The friendship. I didn’t have any of that. It was gone. Everything in our life was falling apart, and I kept making excuses. I tried to figure out the problem. Why was Terry acting so cold and removed? Why was everything so difficult? I had always looked forward to the day when the kids were all grown up and Terry and I could get through the empty-nest stage together. I wasn’t sure if that would ever be. There seemed to be so many holes in our relationship, and so much suspicion on my end regarding his infidelity, and it was getting more and more difficult to keep it together. But I had no proof of anything, and I felt stuck; it wasn’t in me to leave yet, and I was paralyzed with fear and confusion. So I just went through the motions, doing whatever I had to do to stay positive, but I was so tired and drained.

  After we completed the reshoots, I eventually spoke to one of the executives at VH1, to explain I just couldn’t do season four of Hogan Knows Best. I also asked if I hadn’t come back if they were, in fact, going to approach me legally. The executive had never intended anything like that. Terry had just lied to me to get me to come back to Florida, to control me. They expected me to finish the season. That was all.

  Over the course of that year Terry wasn’t wrestling as much and spending a lot more time working on the show. Terry said that a lot of deals were going to come through, but nothing seemed to be clicking. I just kept seeing money going out and not coming in. If we didn’t cut back then, I foresaw problems down the road. We needed to make a change before the bottom fell out. It was too expensive to keep the house in Miami, so we put it up for sale.

  When we sold the Miami house, I knew the kids and I were going right to L.A. The kids and I didn’t want to go back to Willadel. Even though we had a big beautiful house in Clearwater, we were burned out. Clearwater had nothing to offer, as far as the entertainment business. We needed to be in California, in L.A., the entertainment machine.

  I wanted more than ever to have a place back in L.A. I dreamed of being closer to my family again, and the kids really wanted to move, too. I always felt it would have helped Terry’s floundering career. Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger lived there and they were his friends. I also believed it would have helped Brooke’s music career and Nick’s career in movies. It only made sense for all of us to get a small place on the West Coast now.

  Terry knew I didn’t want to settle back in Clearwater, so he finally agreed to let us move. However, every single time I found something suitable in L.A., Terry told me that he wouldn’t rent without seeing it. But then he never made himself available to look. How convenient! Control, control, control! This move was like pulling teeth. I finally decided to rent a furnished house and put our belongings in storage when the time came.

  I started packing up the house in Miami. I had fifteen moving guys and my regular housekeeper, and I hired four housekeepers from an agency. I had never met them before and had second thoughts about even letting them in my house, but I was behind schedule and forged ahead with them anyway.

  The kids and Terry never helped me during the move. As usual, the kids never had to do chores—clean their rooms or take out the trash. Terry always excused them from that and made me seem like I was asking for the moon. It was just easier to let them go, and not start a fight with Terry. A lot of the burden of running the home fell on me. That morning, Terry woke up and, as usual, went to the gym for three hours and then was off to lunch at the Mexican restaurant he loved. Brooke was busy working at the music studio. Nick and his friend Danny Jacobs were playing in the pool. I spearheaded the entire move on an extremely hot August Miami afternoon with a moving crew of twenty that barely spoke English. Navigating all seventeen thousand square feet alone with strangers!

  When the time came for me to pack up Terry’s closet, he didn’t want me to pack any of his stuff.

  “What are you doing?” he asked. “Don’t pack any of these clothes. Hang them back up.”

  “Why? We’re moving,” I shot back.

  “I’m going to pack my own stuff and send it on another truck,” he said.

  I was confused because there was no valid excuse for why he didn’t want me to pack his belongings. “Terry, escrow closes in two more days, and we need to get this stuff out of here. The truck is leaving in two hours.”

  “Don’t worry about it. I don’t want anybody touching my shit.”

  He ended up letting me pack some of his long-sleeved sweaters and jackets for L.A. He basically pacified me with that. Later that night, I wanted to get my jewelry out of the safe. We had two tiny cubicle safes that basically someone could walk away with, especially a strong moving guy. When I asked Terry to open the safe, he paused for a minute.

  “My jewelry’s in there, right?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” he responded. “Give me a minute.” He acted as though
he didn’t remember which safe my belongings were in.

  “It’s in this one,” I said, pointing to the silver one and not the black one. “It’s always been in the silver one with the stickers on the front.”

  I had forgotten the code to the safe. I only kept my jewelry in there, and when I wanted it, Terry would open it up for me. After he opened the safe, I reached in to grab my things and along with my stuff I pulled out a crinkly white CVS bag that was quite heavy. I opened it and all I saw were stacks of $100 bills. “Did you rob a bank?” I asked, shocked. “Where did you get all this money from?”

  The most we ever had in the safe at one time was $5,000 cash. It turned out that there was $50,000 in the CVS bag. Terry explained that he took half of his recent salary for an autograph signing in cash because there wasn’t a good turnout at the event and he decided to let the promoter off the hook for the other half. I knew that it was a lie because Terry had a contract for $100,000 and he was all business when it came to money. There was no way he would opt to take half after traveling and doing the signing. I asked why he didn’t tell me about it, and he didn’t have a concrete answer. Not to mention the fact that he seemed very nervous I’d found it.

  Once the trucks drove out, I spent the rest of that evening cleaning up, leaving fresh flowers I’d ordered and bottles of wine on the counter for the man who purchased our house. He was a Hollywood producer/director and I wanted to make sure the house looked like a model home. He bought some of the furniture, too, so I went through each room putting the finishing touches on each of the pieces. He was going to do a walk-through before the final signatures to close the deal the next day.

  That evening when everything was done, I was absolutely exhausted, hot, sweaty, and dirty. I just wanted to take a shower, pack my travel bag, and go to bed! Instead of Terry hugging me or thanking me for all of my hard work and preparation, he picked a fight with me about which porch lights I had left on! I wanted to leave most of them on so the house looked pretty that night, in case the new owner drove by. Looking back, he probably didn’t want them all on so he could sneak out with Christiane. It was the final fucking straw! I said, “Whatever, fuck it!,” and went to bed crying and alone.

  The next morning, I didn’t stay for the walk-through. I left before Terry woke up and hung out in the lobby of a hotel until the walk-through was completed, being responsible enough to wait in case they had questions or I needed to sign something. I waited four hours in the hot lobby. Once I left, I didn’t want one reason to have to return! I got the final okay from the broker that the papers were signed. The house closed and the buyer was very happy. I called myself a taxi and went to the Miami airport. I had to hurry to L.A. to find a warehouse to store the belongings from our Miami house because the trucks would be there in five days.

  IN JULY 2007, I FINALLY SETTLED INTO THE HOME WE RENTED IN Westwood, California, near Beverly Hills. It was a cute Spanish-style home that wasn’t big, but a perfect transition home for our family. I asked Terry, who was staying at our Willadel home, when he was going to join us in Los Angeles. He told me that he was going to stay in Clearwater for his birthday and then fly out afterward. He’s not coming for another week? I thought. He’s spending his birthday without us? What an ass! Even with Terry being so rude and mean, I still reached out to him for his birthday. When I called him, it sounded like he was partying it up! Laughing and with friends over, he didn’t miss me at all.

  I was in L.A. getting ready to put Brooke out on a tour and was exhausted from the move and traveling. I called Terry and asked if he and Nick would be coming to L.A. for my birthday on August 24, only a week away. He told me that they had decided to stay in Florida for a “boys’ week.” Nick also planned to hit a few towns with his friends John Graziano and Danny Jacobs for some drifting events (drifting is a precision driving technique). He was on the East Coast first, so he returned to Tampa a few days before Terry’s birthday and then left right after for the West Coast. The boys spent a few days with me in California, but couldn’t stay for my birthday, as a drift event was going on in Tampa and they had to get back.

  I did think it was odd that Terry didn’t let me put his clothes on the truck. I just couldn’t imagine that he wasn’t going to come out with his family to California. I believed him when he said that he had stuff to do in Tampa but would be right behind us. I had no time to question it because Brooke was touring with her music and Nick was touring with his racing.

  Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I received a phone call from one of Nick’s old girlfriends. “Linda, is Brooke in Clearwater?” she asked.

  “No, she’s actually in Seattle performing this weekend. Why?”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, I am sure,” I responded. “My brother, Joey, went there with her.”

  “Well, I’m sitting here at Shephard’s on the beach and I just saw your husband go by on a Jet Ski with a blonde on the back that looked just like Brooke.”

  “Well, it’s not Brooke. Brooke is in Seattle!”

  “Then who was it?”

  “That’s exactly my question.”

  All I can tell you is that it was not Christiane; she was a brunette. Terry was probably done with Christiane and already on to his new girlfriend, Jennifer McDaniel. The sickening thing was that he was still married to me, and I was still trying to keep our marriage together. That was why he didn’t want to come to Los Angeles to spend my birthday with me; or why he didn’t want me to come back to Florida and interrupt his “boys’ week.” Terry probably told her he was already separated.

  I spent my forty-eighth birthday completely alone. I did get a knock on the door from a flower delivery guy. He had two bunches of roses in his hands in tired, cheap little vases. The roses looked all raggedy with thorns, like he bought them from someone at a freeway off-ramp. One bunch was yellow and one was red—Hulkamania. There were also two cards that both read the same exact thing: “Happy Birthday. Love, Terry.” “Happy Birthday. Love, Terry.” Wow, that was creative, I thought. Terry usually sent me beautiful roses and flower bouquets for events. This time, he missed the mark sadly. His heart was not into it. I was just so pissed at him for not coming out for my birthday. And for him to think that two last-minute crappy arrangements would make up for it obviously proved that he didn’t even care!

  The next morning I went to get my hair done. The stylist proceeded to dye my hair a horrible khaki green color, when attempting to add lowlights. I was so upset. Crappy flowers, no Terry or Nick, Brooke gone performing, and now green hair! Plus, I was so depressed—alone in a new house. Why was everything so hard? What happened to my family? Why am I alone on everything? I sat at the kitchen table trying to learn how to use my new computer. The phone rang at four thirty in the afternoon. It was Terry calling. Why is he calling me? I wondered. He had been picking fights on the phone with me all week long, being cocky and arrogant. I wasn’t going to answer, but I decided to because I thought maybe he was going to finally join me. I always tried to see the glass half full. I answered with an optimistic and happy, “Hello?”

  “Linda, Nick has been in an accident.”

  “What? Oh my God! Oh my God! Is he okay?”

  “It’s really bad. He hit a tree.”

  “Is he alive? Is he alive?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know.”

  I dropped the phone and fell to my knees. I don’t know if I experienced temporary insanity or fainted and came to or what, but I was absolutely overwhelmed by the anxiety. I couldn’t talk. I couldn’t breathe in or breathe out. I had never experienced this kind of fear in my life. My knees and legs were like jelly. I tried to call my mom for help, but of course I dialed the wrong number and couldn’t get through. I couldn’t see . . . couldn’t think. I was alone. Then Terry called back. “The ambulance is here,” he said. “They’re cutting Nick out of the car.”

  “Oh my God,” I screamed to the Lord. “Please let Nick be alive!!”

  “Who else was with hi
m?” I asked, frantically.

  “John was in the car.”

  “Is John alive?” I asked. I couldn’t believe I was saying “alive.”

  “I don’t know. The paramedics are taking him away in the helicopter.” I was in shock.

  I was three thousand miles away in California. I needed to fly back home to see Nick and John immediately. Nick has a rare blood type—the same one I have—so if anything happened, I knew he would need my blood. I still didn’t know if my son or his friend were alive. I begged God to please not take my Nick!

  I wasn’t thinking straight and drove to nearby Santa Monica airport and begged them for a private jet. They claimed they had one, but when ten P.M. came, they still didn’t know if they had a chartered jet available for sure. My phone was dying, and I was alone with my sixteen-year-old dog, Foxy. I still didn’t know Nick’s fate or John’s. I was sick about what I would find out when I got home to Florida. I called my wealthy neighbors in Miami and asked if they could find me a plane. They found me a private jet that I so desperately needed. I was on a seventeen-passenger jet with just me and my dog, and it was the longest flight and night of my life. At that point, I couldn’t care less how much it cost!

  The Straw That Broke the Camel’s Back

  When I landed in Florida, the limo driver had word that they had released Nick from the hospital and that he was home. Thank you, God! I walked up the back stairs of our Willadel home and into Nick’s bedroom. He had cuts and bruises and was wearing a sling. His eyes looked like they were in shock, and they watered when he saw me. Terry was in the room along with a lawyer!

  “Linda, I know you must be anxious to know what happened,” the attorney said, “but you can’t speak to Nick about the accident.”

  I had no idea what the hell was going on. I didn’t know the facts behind the accident. I didn’t know why there was a lawyer in our house at seven A.M. I remember looking around at the bedroom and noticing that it looked like Nick had been entertaining his friends for a month straight. Empty Coke cans, potato chip wrappers, McDonald’s wrappers, wet bathing suits and towels all over the floor—it was a mess!