Hulk Hogan: Why I almost killed myself

Hulk Hogan burst onto the professional wrestling scene in the late ’70s and has gone on to become one of the best known names in entertainment and a world wrestling champion many times over. From the outside, his story was one of a charmed life — he was at the top of his career, had a wonderful and loving family with a wife and two children. Of course he had his ups and downs — including hints of steroid abuse and a falling-out with WWE and Vince McMahon — but it’s been the last two years that have tested Hogan more than any others in his lifetime. In this excerpt from his book, “My Life Outside the Ring,” the wrestling star writes about the events — his son's car accident, his wife’s filing for divorce and more — that led him to put a gun to his head and almost pull the trigger.

Introduction
Three pounds. I remember thinking, Three pounds of pressure is all it takes to pull this thing. Do you know how easy that would’ve been? I’d been staring at myself in the bathroom mirror for two days straight. Two days. A gun was in my hand and my finger was on the trigger and I was thinking, It would just be so easy. I felt like a snake charmer. I was headed down this dark road convincing myself it was a road I wanted to take. The weird thing was, I didn’t even remember bringing that gun into the bathroom. When did I pick this up? Was it in the safe? Did I have it in the car with me the other night? I bought that gun years ago to protect my family. A last resort. Was I really gonna use it for this?

I popped half a Xanax and took another swig from the big bottle of Captain Morgan’s I’d set on the counter.

The house was empty. Too quiet. I don’t do well alone. My kids were gone. My wife was gone. She had left before, but this was different. She didn’t want to fix things. She’d filed for divorce — actually went to a lawyer and filed papers after twenty-three years. My mind kept running through it all, over and over. My daughter thinks I’m the reason Linda left. There’s so much I want her to understand, but she won’t talk to me. She won’t hear my side of the story.

My thoughts drifted to my son, Nick. Nearly four months had passed since he got into that terrible car accident. And every day since, the details of that August night played over and over in my mind.

It’s not often that a man can pinpoint the moment when life as he knew it began to unravel. For me, it was just after seven thirty on the night of August 26, 2007.

After a long day out on the boat, I’d grabbed a quick shower and hopped in my black Mercedes to head to dinner. Nick and his three buddies had gone just ahead of me to grab a table at Arigato, this Japanese steak house a few miles away. I assumed they’d all gone together in my yellow pickup.

I was wrong.

The fast-moving thunderheads that passed through that afternoon left the roads soaking wet. I remember my tires splashing through puddles as I left the big house on Willadel Drive. Just as I left, Nick’s friend Danny drove up in my silver Viper with his pal Barry in the passenger seat. Their windows were down, and they looked a little panicky as they pulled up beside me.

“Nick got in an accident!” they said.

Great, I thought. This is all I need, thinking that it was just a fender bender.

“Where?” I asked.

They told me on Court Street near Missouri Boulevard — not much more than a mile from where we were.

For some reason it didn’t occur to me that it might be a life-threatening situation. With all the stoplights on that road, I thought they meant that Nick had rear-ended someone, or maybe someone rear-ended Nick. I was a little confused as to why Danny was driving my Viper, but I still thought Nick was in my yellow truck.

So off we went. I turned east and headed down Court Street with the sun getting ready to set behind me. All the lights were green, so I was cruising along when all of a sudden I saw flashing red-and-blues up ahead.

What the hell?

I couldn’t have left the house more than three or four minutes after Nick. But as I looked toward the intersection of Court and Missouri there were police cars in the middle of the road blocking traffic in both directions.

That’s when I saw it: a yellow vehicle smashed up into a palm tree in the center divider.

Oh my God. Nick!

I panicked. I needed to get closer. Traffic was stopped, so I turned into the oncoming lanes and raced down Court Street the wrong way.

As I hit Missouri I just stared at this mangled yellow wreck on the tree, thinking, Holy sh--. It didn’t look like my truck at all. I was confused for a moment. I had this weird little flash of relief. Danny and Barry got it wrong. That’s not my truck. Phew! Nick’s okay.

Then all of a sudden it hit me. Oh my God. That’s my yellow Supra!

My stomach clenched up in a knot. I pulled the Mercedes up on the curb, got out, and started running toward the car. “Nick? Nick!?” A cop tried to hold me back, but there was no way. “That’s my son!” I yelled as I pushed past him.

The yellow Supra was the car Nick loved most. I had no doubt he was behind the wheel. But I couldn’t see him.

I could see his best friend, John Graziano, slumped over in the passenger seat. Nick was nowhere to be found. I thought he’d been thrown from the car, so I’m looking up in the tree, on the ground, across the street. By this time another police car is pulling up, and I hear sirens from the fire trucks coming up the road.

The car had spun around somehow and hit the tree backward. As I reached the front of it a policeman pulled John back. I saw his head. His skull was cracked open at the top of his forehead. It was awful. I almost fainted. It buckled me. John was like a member of my family. And the bleeding was bad — like it wasn’t gonna stop.

I was right there leaning on the side of the car with my hands when I finally saw Nick — my only son — folded up like an accordion with his head down by the gas pedal. “Nick!” I yelled. I could see he was alive. He turned his head, stuck his hand out, and gave me a thumbs-up. For a second I was relieved. Then the chaos set in. The sound of engines. Sirens. A saw. Paramedics pulling John from the passenger seat. So much blood.

I can’t even describe to you how panicked I was. The police and firefighters seemed panicked, too. The Supra’s removable targa top was off, and you could see that the cockpit of the vehicle was pretty intact, but the rest of the car was just mangled. The fiberglass shell on this thing had crumpled like a toy.

All of a sudden the firefighters started cutting the side of the car to try to get Nick out, and I was standing right there when I heard my boy screaming, “No, no, no, stop! Stop! You’re gonna cut my legs off. Dad! Just unbuckle the seat belt. I can get out!” So I reached in and pushed the button on his seat belt, and Nick just crawled right out. His wrist was broken. His ribs were cracked. None of that mattered. He was gonna be okay.

But not John. John wasn’t moving.

I pressed the gun to my cheek. I tried not to look in the mirror.

In between flashbacks I kept obsessing about Linda. How could she leave in the middle of all this? How could she?

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I even turned the pity party on myself. I’m a mess. I’m in so much pain. My hip. My knees. I don’t even know if I can wrestle anymore. What the hell am I gonna do? My back hurts so bad I have to sit just to brush my teeth. In this damned chair. Right here.

I can’t get out of this thing.

My God. Look at me....

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