Do we like Hulk Hogan?
Our score: 4 out of 10. Documented charity work and a huge career sit against recorded slurs, a reported jibe at Kamala Harris's heritage and an alleged anti-gay slur.
Terry Bollea was the face of 1980s wrestling. He turned pro in 1977, became a 12-time world champion across the WWF and WCW, and took his Hulkamania act into Rocky III, Mr. Nanny and the reality show Hogan Knows Best. His 1996 heel turn with the nWo is still called the most famous in the business. He died on 24 July 2025.
The big stain arrived in 2015, when a recording from a leaked sex tape surfaced with Hogan using a racial slur. WWE ended his contract and he apologised, saying there was “no excuse for it”. On Good Morning America he asked fans for forgiveness and blamed the word on growing up in a rough neighbourhood. WWE brought him back in 2018, calling it a second chance, while The New Day said they found his comments hard to forget.
The 2026 Netflix doc has Hogan facing his worst moments, and LADbible reports he is shown using the slur on a second set of recordings too. AV Club thought the series raced through the racism scandal and went easy on the Gawker saga, never mentioning that Peter Thiel helped fund his lawsuit. It also lands a fresh interview with Donald Trump. If you wanted a hard reckoning, reviews suggest you won't get one.
The Gawker fight is the part where he's easy to cheer for. A Florida jury gave him a $140 million verdict over the site's posting of his sex tape, and in 2016 Gawker's shell settled for $31 million. That sank Gawker, with the site shut down and founder Nick Denton filing for personal bankruptcy. Privacy against a gossip machine is a fair fight to win, but it's the same case that dragged the other tapes into daylight.
On the harm check, his words are the problem rather than his politics. He spoke on the final night of the 2024 Republican convention, just before Trump's speech. Weeks later, a video obtained by TMZ showed him asking an Ohio crowd if he should body-slam Kamala Harris, and TMZ reported he also mocked her Indian heritage. He walked it back with “That's not me that was the beers talking.” Back in 2015, RadarOnline also reported allegations of a gay slur on the tape, and the coverage we read shows no specific response to that one. We found no vaccine or climate campaigning.
So where does that leave us? Hogan spent decades being kind to kids and good causes, and he also gave us recordings, and later a campaign-trail joke, that plenty of people heard as racially loaded. He apologised for the recordings, but the pattern is hard to wave away. If you grew up on Hulkamania, it's fine to love the nostalgia. We'd just do it without the shirt rip.