HULK HOGAN WAS A HERO TO SO MANY KIDS. The WWF always collaborated with different charitable organizations benefiting children, specifically the Make-A-Wish Foundation and the Starlight Children’s Foundation. These groups work with terminally ill children and grant them their dying wishes. And it was amazing to me how many kids shared the same wish—to meet Hulk Hogan in person. So many kids with such little time left looked up from their wheelchairs, hospital beds, and parents’ arms at Hulk, who brought a little magic into their lives.
Terry was so powerful, yet gentle around those little angels. And he always had a kind word for their parents, who were saints. I always stood by his side hugging the kids and giving them T-shirts and bandannas, gifts from the Hulkster.
From watching Terry deal as warmly as he did with these ill children, I knew he’d be a great dad. I was more than ready to be a parent, and I think he was ready, too. Now that Terry had become so successful, and I knew he was on his way, I felt it was time for us to take a moment and put down some real family roots.
It took a little while, but about six months into trying to conceive, I got pregnant. I remember Terry looking at the positive pregnancy test in the kitchen. His eyes lit up. He couldn’t believe it. Yep, I was pregnant! We went to the doctor, and the pregnancy was taking off and doing well. We were on our way to becoming parents!
About four months along, Terry and I went to a wrestling match he had on his schedule in Rhode Island. We drove from Connecticut to Rhode Island in the dead of winter. It was so cold that despite the car heater being on, the frigid air still managed to seep in.
Terry was in the dressing room getting ready to go out and wrestle when I suddenly got cramps, bad ones. I didn’t know why. I thought maybe it was growing pains from the baby because I was almost midway through my pregnancy. I rushed to the ladies’ room, sat down on the toilet, and blood gushed from my body. I realized I was having a miscarriage. I was devastated. Terry must have sensed something was wrong because he came into the public restroom to check on me. He was so tall that he looked over the stall and saw me sitting on the toilet crying.
An ambulance was called and I was taken to a local hospital where they announced that there was no baby. It was an ectopic pregnancy, which means the pregnancy occurred outside the uterus.
“I thought I was four and a half months’ pregnant,” I said to the nurse.
“No, I’m sorry,” she responded. “But you can try again.”
It took so long to get pregnant the first time that maybe I can’t have a baby, I thought. Maybe I’m not meant to have a child. After a few months, Terry and I started again. Six months later, and voilà! Preggers! This time it took and I was ecstatic. I began seeing Dr. Lewis at the All Women’s Center in Tampa, Florida, where we monitored the pregnancy closely.
The second time around I told no one I was pregnant except Terry. I didn’t want to jinx it. I stayed home, didn’t work out, and ate and ate and ate. I didn’t care about anything except the baby. During this time, I lived at our home in Florida so I wouldn’t catch a cold up north. I was tan, healthy, and very pregnant. I was having the Hulkster’s baby and it showed. I was huge! I thought for certain it was a boy. In fact, I prepared the nursery for a boy. I was so big that I looked like I was smuggling watermelons. The normal thing that happens during pregnancy is that the baby drops. Mine kept growing straight out in front of me.
I wrote an entry in my journal on March 4, 1988, which is exactly two months and one day before I delivered Brooke. I clearly had the baby blues:
Well I’m having a bad day. I just keep crying because I’m so depressed. Terry won’t be home for five more days. He doesn’t like making love to me anymore because I’m so fat and pregnant. I have no more self-esteem left. I hate looking at myself in the mirror. Today I weigh 183 pounds! The veins in the back of my knees are having blowouts. My feet are totally swollen. I can’t wear high heels anymore. Maybe Terry can loan me his wrestling boots! I can’t exercise now. I’m not tan. I’m sick of staying home. I wish I could go away with Terry just for a couple of days and go out at night. I still have two more months of being pregnant left and it feels more like two years!
It wasn’t easy being alone in Florida during my pregnancy with Brooke. Terry’s parents were older and traveling was difficult for them, so we didn’t see them that much. My family was three thousand miles away in California. This was the first grandchild in my family in many years and it was a special time that I wished they were experiencing with me.
Terry wrestled often during that course of time and watched my baby bump grow. When the baby started kicking, he liked to feel my tummy. We would also read baby books together. He was very excited about becoming a dad for the first time. Terry really loved me, and the child growing inside of me was an extension of our love.
As my due date approached, I got into mommy mode. I fixed up the nursery, washed the quilt, bought stuffed animals, packed the diaper bag, got the changing table ready, and put the car seat in the Suburban. Now, we just needed the kid!
My mom and sister flew from California to Florida for my due date of April 28, 1988, but there was no birth. No labor pains. No dropping. No signs. There was just a lot of kicking and moving. I started to think that if they didn’t get this kid out of me soon, I was going to burst! I was pretty uncomfortable, with my measurements topping out at bust 42½, waist 43½, and hips 42½. Pretty soon King Kong Bundy was going to look like a runway model next to me.
Ten more days went by, and finally my mom got worried and called Dr. Lewis.
He told us to come in to see him, but not to worry because a lot of first babies are born late. We gathered our purses and headed to the doctor’s office right away. Terry went out on his boat, and my sister stayed behind.
When we got to Dr. Lewis’s office, he told me that the baby was in fetal distress. He immediately broke my water and called the hospital, telling them to get ready for me because the baby was coming right then! I was nervous to push this enormous baby out from inside of me. Wouldn’t you be?
Terry raced to the hospital. I was going to give birth via C-section. I had to get an epidural. It was a big needle and I was very nervous. Terry showed up right before my epidural. I felt so much better when he got there. I remember his large tan hands tenderly holding mine. It made all the difference in the world to me.
On May 5, 1988, I gave birth to a ten-pound, eight-ounce beautiful and healthy baby girl. What? A girl? I was sure it was going to be a boy. She seemed as big as a two-year-old. Our daughter was adorable with the biggest and brightest eyes, a cute nose like a Smurf, and lungs like . . . well, a singer.
The next challenge was for Terry and me to come up with a name for this angel. With our last name being Bollea, I wanted something simple. It was springtime and she was such a breath of fresh air that I called her Brooke. Her dad nicknamed her Brookeitini. I nicknamed her Brooklyn from when we lived in Connecticut so close to New York. The name fit her perfectly.
Brooke was the most celebrated baby. I had so many flowers in the room from friends and fans who knew that Hulk Hogan was a new dad. It was clear that she was a daddy’s girl.
Whatever has transpired in Terry’s life—divorce, injuries, whatever—I can bank on the fact that the best thing he ever did was have children. He loves his kids to death, and they have always been the apples of his eye. When Brooke was born, I think that having a daughter got Terry more in touch with the softer side of himself. One time when Brooke started to cry, nothing I could do would stop it, but as soon as Terry picked her up she immediately calmed down. He was gently patting her back when suddenly a man-sized belch came out of our baby girl. I had forgotten to burp her! He loved being a dad.
Innocent Until Proven Guilty
After Brooke’s arrival into the world, things seemed perfect between Terry and me. Even though he was traveling for work and couldn’t be involved with the family as much as I would’ve liked him to be, he was a great dad. I missed Terry, but I also understood Hulkamania was still hitting the world like a tidal wave, and our plan was to ride that wave.
Terry had branched out into acting in movies, TV shows, and commercials. He often had to go on location for a lengthy time. On one particular job, he had been gone for almost a month, and I couldn’t wait to fly there and visit him. However, I was grounded in Florida until Brooke was old enough to fly.
When Brooke turned four months old, we headed for the set. A car picked us up at the airport and took us to the location where Terry greeted us with a big hug. He took us on a tour of the set and introduced us to all of the people working alongside him.
I really didn’t know much about the project Terry was working on or who his costars were. When he introduced me to one of the women on the set, I felt a strange vibe. I can’t explain it, but my husband was much more comfortable around everyone else on the film set except her. When we were in her presence, there was definitely a different energy.
She was a tall, young, thin woman with black hair and fair skin—you know, one of those actresses who never went in the sun. When I met her, she was dressed in tight jeans and a white tank top with her nipples protruding evenly and upwardly. (I was nursing and mine were protruding unevenly and downwardly!) I had no reason to mistrust Terry, but I had that intuition and I can’t explain it. Think about it—a bunch of people on a set, stuck in a random city in a random hotel, bored and lonely. All of these people are away from their significant others—husbands or wives—on location for months at a time.
As the stay-at-home spouse, you can’t escape the thought of it because you read something about men on the set being unfaithful in almost every tabloid. They say while the cat’s away the mice will play. Unless you have a devotion to honor the commitment that you made with your spouse, which I did. But I had my doubts about Terry. Maybe it was me being paranoid. Maybe it was my woman’s intuition, but I couldn’t help how I felt.
I can’t say anything happened because I had no proof of my suspicions. In fact, after I arrived home in Florida, I talked myself out of feeling the way I did. It’s the baby blues, I thought. I’m overweight, insecure, and my hormones are out of whack. Terry and I are different. He would never do something like that to me.
As the wife of a wrestler I had to get used to some things. And as Terry’s career grew, and he became a worldwide celebrity and a household name, it became more difficult. It was constant work and travel. With national celebrity, there was a whole new level of learning, trust, and understanding that I had to have for my husband.
I decided to let the whole negative thing go and be positive.
I LOVED BEING WITH OUR BEAUTIFUL BABY IN OUR NEW HOME IN Clearwater, Florida. During this time, Terry and I spoke about having a second child. He explained that he wanted to wait. I was enjoying and getting used to my new role of mommy, so I was in no rush either.
We all know what they say about the best-laid plans. I ended up forgetting to take my birth control pill on time. At first, I didn’t think that missing my pill would be a problem. It took so long to get pregnant with Brooke that I thought we were sure to wrestle a bit with conceiving Hogan baby number two. Plus, Terry was rarely home! Well, I thought wrong. When my period didn’t come for two months straight, I decided it was time to take a pregnancy test.
My mom’s mom, Grandma Nini (as I liked to call her), had come to visit Brooke and me in Florida. It was great to have my grandmother around for some extra support and help. I told her that I might be pregnant again, but we needed proof. I took a pregnancy test. After we both watched it turn pink, Nini watched me turn white. I was pregnant and afraid to tell Terry. Sure, we had spoken about waiting to have another child, but now that I was pregnant, what was I going to do? I knew Terry was on his way home and would arrive the next day, so I waited to tell him in person. In the meantime, I asked my grandma to keep it a secret.
The next day Terry didn’t even make it all the way through the front door before Nini blurted out, “Don’t you have something you want to tell him?” (Quick tip: Loud Italian grandmothers can’t keep secrets.) I then told Terry that I was pregnant again.
“Why did you tell Nini before you told me?” he asked.
“Why does that matter?” I responded.
“How far along are you?”
“I’m not sure.”
Terry was angry, and he took me upstairs for a private chat. He explained that he thought that we were in agreement about waiting to have another child. He felt that this wasn’t the right time for him to be a father again, that he didn’t even know if he wanted another kid. I really didn’t understand his anger about this, since he loved Brooke so much. He punished me by giving me the silent treatment the rest of that night. I got upset and began to cry.
The next morning, Terry seemed like he had a change of heart, but that would soon fade. He kept repeating that he thought we were going to wait. At that point, what did it matter? We had a baby growing inside of me and we loved having a family. This was God’s way.
Although my pregnancy with Nick came as a surprise to Terry, at some point he needed to get over it. Brooke was so beautiful, and I knew that having a second child was going to be just as awesome. But Terry seemed afraid. I guess it was going to be harder for him to come and go as he pleased, and he would have more responsibility on his shoulders. At that time, he was probably going to have to curtail some of the shit he was doing that I didn’t know about.
As months went by, surprisingly he never really warmed up to the idea of having another child. I think Terry thought I planned the pregnancy, but I didn’t. With the chaos of having a new baby, a new house, and a crazy schedule, it was hard enough to remember to brush my teeth, let alone remember to take the pill. I had a housekeeper, but no nanny, and still managed to take care of the empire we had built.
I was afraid that the negativity surrounding my pregnancy would affect the baby in its early stages. So I called everyone I loved and told them the good news. My family was thrilled, and I quickly began to feel better about the pregnancy. Ah, some positive vibes were just what the doctor—rather, the ob-gyn—ordered.
During my second pregnancy, Terry was cast in the starring role of another movie called Suburban Commando, to be shot on location in Los Angeles. My hometown! We made plans to move to L.A. for a few months, which I was really excited about. There’s nothing like going back home and being close to my family, especially with a baby daughter and another child on the way. I had spent so many years on the road with Terry, living in Minnesota, Connecticut, and Florida. This was a much-needed homecoming for me.
We quickly set up shop on the West Coast. My parents let us rent a house from them that they had recently bought for spec. No first or last month’s rent. No security deposit. Just move right in! Of course, we paid them some rent, but not much. My mother helped furnish the house and got it completely ready for us, since I was pregnant and really couldn’t do much to help. I also found a new doctor in L.A. who would deliver the baby.
Thankfully, I was not as big during this pregnancy as I was with Brooke. There were some complications though. The baby was lying sideways and deep in my body. He was positioned in my uterus in such a way that the circulation on the whole right side of my body from my vag on down was cut off. I had really bad varicose veins in my right leg. My leg was throbbing and felt like it was on fire for almost the entire nine months.
Terry started filming the movie and we settled into our new schedule. He found a Gold’s Gym near our rental home and started training. Once in a while, I rallied and went to the gym with him. Since I was pregnant, I did what little exercise I could do. Working out together was more of a way to spend some time together than anything else.
While at the gym a woman approached me and mentioned how much she liked my hairstyle. I was wearing it in two braided pigtails just like I always did. The woman’s name was Cory Everson, a professional bodybuilder who won Ms. Olympia six times. Her figure was absolutely flawless—lean and tan with sexy muscles. She would end up becoming better friends with Terry than with me because he was at the gym every day. I was eight months’ pregnant and it was more difficult the second time.
A week or two later, Terry told me that he was going to start training at another gym—which Cory and her husband, Jeff, went to—that had more weights. Cory was married, so I didn’t mind her hanging out with Terry. However, I didn’t know that her husband traveled a lot for business. Terry would get up early and go to the gym near her home and train. The workouts become longer and longer and more frequent—every day, in fact. Then, his workouts went from lasting two hours to four hours.
One afternoon, Terry and I were supposed to have lunch together after his workout. I hadn’t gone out that much since I was pregnant, so I got all dressed up. I waited for him to pick me up, but he was late. Thirty minutes went by. Then an hour. (There were no cell phones back then, so I just waited.) How could he forget? I wondered. Terry finally came home two hours late. He claimed that he was late because he wasn’t familiar with where the gym equipment was located.
I got that sinking feeling that maybe he was doing a little more than working out with the machines. I began to think that he might be having an affair. His long workouts and crappy treatment of me left me wondering. The fact that they had so much in common with bodybuilding made me feel like an outsider. I had read that if a man has his first affair, it’s usually when his wife is pregnant. Here’s why:
• The husband becomes jealous because he is not being shown the attention he was shown before.
• The husband wasn’t really ready to have a child and shows anger toward the wife for getting pregnant.
• The wife may not want to have sex during pregnancy because her body is changing—she has morning sickness and sensitive breasts and is tired and emotional.
• A husband can’t deal with the hormonal ups and downs (aka mood swings) that his wife is experiencing during pregnancy.
• Pregnant women can’t drink and party, so instead of the husband staying home with you and making it a Blockbuster night, he hits the bars and clubs with his friends.
• While you and your husband are wandering around the mall shopping for maternity clothes, you notice that he has a wandering eye and is checking out newer, slimmer models.
ON JULY 26, 1990, TWO WEEKS BEFORE MY DUE DATE, I BEGAN TO have contractions. My mom checked me into the hospital, and Terry arrived soon after. Brooke’s delivery was late, but this baby was early. You just never know. I went into the delivery room bright and early the next morning at 7:30 A.M., they prepped me, and at 8:10 A.M.—the same time that Brooke was born—I delivered an eight-pound, seven-ounce boy. He had white-blond hair, soft pink skin, and the cutest face ever. It was such a joyous occasion that I seemed to forget any anger I had toward Terry. I just held our child closely and cried with joy.
Our new baby was so small in size compared to Brooke at birth. I thought of lots of boys’ names, but none of them seemed to suit him. For three days I held Mr. No Name in my arms, looking down at his turned-up nose, rosebud mouth, and perfect little body and wondering what to call him. Then my mom suggested Nick. I immediately liked it. Terry agreed. Nick was it! Enter stage left: Nicolas Allen Bollea.
Nicky was always such a sweet angel. Brooke was so smart and ahead of herself, but Nick was exactly his age. He was younger, weaker, and smaller. He had twenty thousand ear infections as a baby, and I gave him the back-to-back pink medicine every week. I just had to take extra care of him. But even at that age, he was a man’s man. Terry realized that he wasn’t just a crying mouth to feed, but a soft, sweet baby, a good boy, and his little man. Terry cared for him deeply. And Nick and I have that special mother-son bond. Nick was always sensitive, not a roughhouse type. He has never spoken a harsh word about anyone and has never talked back or raised his voice to me. As an adult, I’m sure he has dealt with the pressure of being compared to his father. But there’s only one Hulk Hogan—and Nick has always respected his father. Nick had his own dreams and never felt that he was supposed to fill his dad’s shoes.
When I brought Nick home from the hospital, things were good for the first two weeks until Brutus, Terry’s wrestling buddy and party animal extraordinaire, moved in with us in California. He was recovering from surgery after a parasailing accident. When the accident happened, it was pretty scary because Brutus almost died. Terry felt better knowing that his friend was in his house getting the best care possible. I have always been the nurturing type, so as Brutus recovered in the bed upstairs I brought him breakfast, lunch, and dinner. With two babies also under the same roof, I had my hands full. Brutus had broken bones throughout his face and his jaw was wired shut, which meant I had to cook a soft diet for him. Not to mention, I cooked a protein-packed diet for Hulk. It was Mickey Mouse pancakes for Brooke and formula for Nick.
At the end of the day after taking care of everybody, I was wiped out. I certainly didn’t feel like having sex or initiating it. I think Terry knew not to bug me. It ran through my mind that maybe he was getting sex somewhere else. To me, there was no excuse to go outside of our marriage. I don’t think he realized what I was really going through on my end taking care of two kids and his friend. I was putting myself out there for Terry, and I didn’t feel like I was getting anything back from him emotionally or physically.
When Nick stopped nursing, I got a nanny to watch the kids while I went to the gym to work out and try to get my bod back in shape. I thought it would be okay if I left the house for just an hour or so to do something for myself. I mean, how much can one really take of cleaning drooling faces, changing bandages, and washing dishes? And then there were the kids! When I told Terry that I wanted to work out with him again, I was shocked when he said that he didn’t want to go to the same gym together. He told me that he liked the gym equipment better at another gym, which was the same gym where Cory trained. As I mentioned, the workouts had become longer and longer. Between the workouts and his film schedule, I wouldn’t see him till the wee hours of the next morning! Something was wrong with that picture, and I had that uneasy feeling again that something was going on between them. Although I was scared of Terry’s reaction, I did accuse him of sleeping with Cory. Terry denied it and went on to make me feel like a crazy, hormonal, insecure wife. I had two young children and I wanted to think the best. I wanted to believe him. So I made excuses for the entire situation. He always made me doubt myself, and I eventually started believing him. Yeah, I must be crazy, I thought. I’m okay looking, a good mom, wife, homemaker. I would have liked to have had exciting sex with him. What’s wrong with me? Why am I so angry and doubtful? Besides he’s a guy who has it all. Why would he ever want to screw it up?
Truth is, I wasn’t insecure. I was aware. This scenario would go on for years. Eventually, I began reading about how to be a better wife, and then realized I already was a good wife! I turned to books about how not to be a victim, how men love bitches, and I tried not to be a pushover—yearning to keep his respect. And then I read books about infidelity, just wondering, what are the signs? How can I really tell? It was so hard, but I slowly started to pay more attention to details, how I was feeling, and how he was acting.
Terry was busy filming Suburban Commando, so he was gone all day and wouldn’t return home until very late at night. I never really knew exactly where Terry was or who he was with the majority of the time.
When Terry’s workouts with Cory hit the four-hour mark every day, the anger began to mount. It really bugged me, and I was at the end of my rope. Was I paranoid? Insecure? Or was my husband having an affair? I needed to put my mind at ease and make sure that Terry was a man of his word. So I hired a private investigator. Honestly, I was disappointed that I had to take this measure and equally scared that Terry might find out. If he ever did, I knew that he could react violently because he was taking a lot of steroids and a never-ending flow of pain pills. Remember, these are hormones that create highs and lows like you could never imagine. I never knew what mood Terry would be in or what I would have to contend with on a daily basis. Ironic, but he was the hormonal one!
The investigator posed as a gym member and watched Terry and Cory work out for three days straight. What he witnessed was the two of them training, but mostly touching and Cory rubbing Terry’s shoulders and neck as he sat on one of the machines in between sets. After their workout, Terry got in her car and they drove to her house. They went inside together for about thirty to forty-five minutes. Then they came outside and drove back to the gym in her car. They parted ways with a kiss good-bye in the parking lot, and both drove off.
Later I asked Terry where he had been. He said he and Cory had a bite to eat and then he stopped at the vitamin store. That might have been true, but why didn’t he mention stopping over at Cory’s house and riding in her car with her?
The investigator said he couldn’t follow them inside of her house, so he didn’t actually have proof of a sexual encounter. But, in his experience, he said that from how they acted and the body language they displayed that my husband was probably having an affair. That was all I needed to hear.
Hearing the investigator say they were probably having an affair sickened me. I remember saying to Terry, “Why do you have to keep training with Cory?” I wonder if Cory’s now-ex-husband ever realized how much time they spent together.
I didn’t know what to think. The last thing that you want to believe is that your husband is fucking around on you. If I really had known for a fact that he was having an affair with Cory, I would have left him. But that little strain of uncertainty kept me wondering and I stayed. It puts that element of the unknown in your lap. Then you’re faced with having to deal with looking at yourself in the mirror. What the fuck is really happening here, Linda? I asked myself, confused as hell. Look in the mirror. What is going on? Listen to your little voice. Listen to your heart of hearts.
On the one hand, I didn’t want to sit there and imagine something that wasn’t there. On the other hand, I didn’t want to lie down and have someone run over me. I didn’t know which direction to go in. It was truly confusing.
Because I didn’t have proof that something was going on, my mother and my family said that I didn’t really know for sure if he was cheating. They felt I needed to make my marriage work. I had two babies and what was I going to do? Where was I going to go? What would the kids think of me later in life if I pulled them away from their dad? I didn’t want my emotions to get the best of me. When I looked at the situation, leaving was overwhelming. I took the path of least resistance. I really never knew if he had the affair. I still don’t know, but I will always have that intuition.
Innocent until proven guilty, I guess.