Brooke Hogan recalled how her late father, Hulk Hogan, sleeping with one of her best friends caused an irreparable rift in their relationship.
“A major turning point came after he slept with my friend Christiane [Plante],” Brooke, 38, exclusively told Us. “I forgive people very easily — sometimes probably too easily — and I forgave him, but something between us changed afterward. I don’t think he ever related to me in quite the same way again.”
Plante confirmed the affair with Hulk to the National Enquirer in 2008, which she said occurred when the pro wrestler and his estranged wife, Linda, “privately knew their marriage was ending.”
Linda, 67, Brooke’s mother, filed for divorce from Hulk in 2007 after 24 years of marriage. The divorce was finalized in 2009. Hulk, who died of a heart attack in July 2025, also shared son Nick, 36, with Linda.
“Then the divorce happened, and our entire family structure changed,” Brooke explained to Us. “Over time, things became increasingly complicated until eventually the relationship I had always believed could survive anything couldn’t survive what was happening around us anymore. That’s probably the biggest thing I wish people understood about the Hogan family: Public perception reduces families into heroes and villains. Real families aren’t that simple.”
While Brooke acknowledged there was often “tremendous love” within her family, she said things were often far more divisive than anybody knew behind the scenes.
“There was also dysfunction, fear, resentment, enormous betrayal, money, fame, image management and decades of unresolved hurt all existing underneath the same roof,” Brooke claimed. “I can love my father profoundly and still tell the truth about where he hurt me. I can acknowledge the wonderful things my family gave me while also acknowledging that eventually the dynamic became something I could no longer live inside. Both things can be true.”
Despite years of bitterness, Brooke — whose new single “Goes Around,” written about her family dysfunction, is being released on Friday, September 25 — said that her late dad was “an excellent father to me for a very long time.”
“People sometimes assume that because our relationship became complicated later, I must be rewriting everything that came before it. I’m not,” she said. “The foundation between my dad and me was incredibly strong. It survived public scandals, private pain, divorce, enormous changes in our family and periods of estrangement because underneath all of it there was a bond that was very real.”
Brooke added, “As a little girl, I felt incredibly safe with my dad. I adored him. I have wonderful memories with him.”
