*In his first interview since he was exposed spewing the N-word, Hulk Hogan says he wanted to commit suicide over the incident.
“I was at the lowest point of my life, to the point where I wanted to kill myself,” Hulk, born Terry Bollea, told ABC’s Amy Robach in the interview that aired today.
“Everything I’ve done my whole career, my whole life, was like it never happened … like I never existed,” the 12-time world wrestling champion, now 62, added. “It was devastating.”
Hogan was fired by the WWE after audio of him using racial slurs in a 2012 sex tape were revealed in late July.
“Please forgive me,” he begged fans in the ABC interview. “I’m a nice guy … not the Hulk Hogan that rips his shirt off and — bang bang — slams giants. I’m Terry Bollea, I’m just a normal man.”
Hogan said he used the N-word in a moment of anger in reference to his daughter Brooke’s boyfriend, and didn’t know he was being recording. He admitted that “it was wrong” nevertheless, and that he was embarrassed.
“I’m not a racist,” he insisted. “But a lot of people need to realize that you inherit things from your environment, and where I grew up in South Tampa, it was a rough neighborhood, very low income, and we greet each other saying that word. The word was just thrown around like it was nothing!”
His daughter Brooke has stood by him throughout the scandal, despite the fact that he used a derogatory term for her boyfriend. She even wrote a poem about “his tender heart” that she posted to Facebook.
“If anybody should’ve disowned me, it should’ve been her,” Hogan said. “She should’ve been the one to throw me out like trash, but instead, she showed more love than anybody.”
“Just because a person makes a mistake, don’t just throw them away,” he advised. “If everybody at their lowest point was judged on one thing they said, and all of a sudden your whole career was wiped out because of something you said 10 or 20 years ago, it’d be a sad world. People get better every day.”
Watch the interview below:
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