Hulk Hogan’s longtime friend, professional wrestler Kevin Nash, is coming to his defense as Hogan’s past controversies resurfaced following his death last week.
Speaking on his “Kliq This” podcast on Monday, July 28, Nash, 66, weighed in on social media users and radio personalities bringing up Hogan’s divisive past amid news of his death. A decade before he died, audio leaked of Hogan (real name Terry Bollea) using the N-word multiple times and describing himself as “racist, to a point.”
“For the people that want to go after Hogan for doing this, doing that, doing this — how about f*** you, man?” said Nash, who was one-third of the original NWO, the group that revolutionized professional wrestling in the 1990s, alongside Hogan and the late Scott Hall in WCW.
“He’s dead. How about his kids, man? Can’t you just lay off the man?” the wrestler said.
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The WWE Hall of Famer continued, “Ain’t nothing’s gonna change now. It’s sensationalism. It’s, ‘You know, I never liked him anyway.’ Who gives a f***? I know he doesn’t. I know he didn’t.”
Nash again reiterated, “Think about his kids,” referring to Hogan’s daughter Brooke, 37, and son Nick, 35, whom the late wrestler shared with ex-wife Linda Hogan.
“Think about his friends and family. If you don’t have nothing good to say, shut the f*** up,” Nash added.
Amid Hogan’s N-word controversy in 2015, he was fired by WWE and removed from the WWE Hall of Fame. In a statement to Us Weekly at the time, Hogan said there was “no excuse” for the language captured in the leaked audio.
“I believe very strongly that every person in the world is important and should not be treated differently based on race, gender, orientation, religious beliefs or otherwise. I am disappointed with myself that I used language that is offensive and inconsistent with my own beliefs. It is not who I am. I continue to work every day to improve as a person, and this matter is an important learning experience for me in that regard,” the wrestler told Us.
Hogan was reinstated into the WWE Hall of Fame in July 2018 and began making sporadic guest appearances on WWE television shows, but he remained a polarizing figure among fans until his death.
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In his final WWE appearance in January, Hogan was booed at the Intuit Dome in Inglewood, California, when he appeared on stage during the Netflix premiere of Raw.
Hogan died on Thursday, July 24, at age 71 after suffering a cardiac arrest. He is survived by his wife, Sky Daily, and his children, Brooke and Nick, the latter of whom appeared on Monday’s episode of Raw during a tribute to Hogan.
