Hulk Hogan’s estranged daughter Brooke has explained why she chose not to attend her father’s funeral and instead spent the day at the beach with her family.
The WWE legend was buried at a private ceremony in Clearwater, Florida, on Tuesday after dying aged 71 of a heart attack twelve days prior. Guests at the service included Kid Rock, comedian Theo Von and WWE power couple Triple H and wife Stephanie McMahon.
Notably absent though was Hogan’s eldest daughter Brooke, 37, who later posted pictures of herself hanging out the beach with her husband Steven Oleksy, 39, and her newborn twins, Oliver and Molly, who were born in January.
Explaining her absence from the ceremony, Hogan explained that she would rather spend time honoring her father privately in a way which made her feel closest to him and “agreed with my soul.”
“My father hated the morbidity of funerals. He didn’t want one. And although I know people grieve in many ways—and I’m so grateful for all celebrations and events organized to honor him, as his daughter, I had to make my own decision to honor him the best and most genuine way I knew how… privately… the way that made me feel the closest to him,” she wrote in a post on Instagram.
“The only thing missing today was him in his pop up lawn chair watching the waves… and the sunset,” she added.
Hogan had been estranged from her father for at least two years prior to his death, with a myriad of reasons including a dislike of Hulk’s third wife Sky Daily, 46, and the ongoing fallout from leaked audio of the wrestler using racial slurs to describe her ex-boyfriend cited as being responsible for their lack of communication.
When Hogan married husband Steven Oleksy in 2022, her father was absent from the ceremony, with Oleksy telling People he was told the former wrestler “doesn’t do weddings or funerals anymore.”
Following their wedding, Oleksy said a “series of phone calls” between the father and daughter was the final nail in their relationship, which saw the wrestler refuse to meet his newborn grandchildren.
Around a month after the couple’s children were born, Oleksy tried to get in touch with his father-in-law to rebuild the relationship with his daughter, but his requests were ultimately ignored: “I sent text messages once again to kind of gauge where he was at, but there was no interest,” he admitted.
Despite the bad blood, Hogan nevertheless posted a touching tribute to her father as the family grieved his passing at his “favorite place, the beach.”
She continued: “Daddy, we honored you in the simplest way that agreed with my soul. We took our babies to the beach, and put them in the same salty waters you loved.”
“Molly loved the water. I think she’ll be a ‘little fish’ as you called me. We love you and honor the things that made you so special. Every grain of sand and every wave reminded me of being your beach baby, and brought us closer to you. I pray you are at peace and know how dearly I love you,” she added.
“Rest in heaven Daddy,” the former reality star concluded.
She later posted a follow-up message on her Instagram Stories of herself and her father playing together as a child. “We will be celebrating your life and all our good memories while we have our feet in the same saltwater you loved. Until we meet again, daddy,” the caption read.
The post Hulk Hogan’s Daughter Explains Why She Skipped His Funeral appeared first on The Daily Beast.
