Hulk Hogan's fans may have saved his life.
In a new interview with Oprah's "Where Are They Now?" series on OWN, the 60-year-old revealed that his picture-perfect life quickly took a turn for the worse. The professional wrestler recalled feeling suicidal after the end of his VH1 reality series, "Hogan Knows Best".
"Everything kind of went downhill really fast," Hogan said. "There was an accident that my son was involved in and a good friend of ours was in the accident with my son. Just the marriage basically crashing an burning."
In Nov. 2007 Hogan's wife, Linda, of 24-years filed for divorce. Three months before his son, Nick, was involved in a car accident that left one of his friends critically injured.
The wrestler admitted the combination of these problems led him to a very dark place, that made him think about taking his own life.
"After the show, I kind of hit rock bottom. Everything got dark. Everything happened at once," he said. "I was drinking alcohol very heavily. It just all kept piling up. It all kept mounting. I didn't know how to handle it. I always wondered, 'How could someone take their own life?' I got to the point where I said, 'You know what? Maybe this would be easy. Maybe this would be an easy way to fix things.'"
Hogan he credits it all to walking outside after a negative New Year's Eve dinner in Miami with a few friends and family.
"When I walked outside, some kid ran out and hugged me and was all, 'I grew up watching you. I didn't have a dad, and you're like a dad to me,'" he said. "And there was another person that said, 'Hey Hulk, we love you.' And I went, oh my God. It was right then that it really. I didn't understand what was going on, but it hit me that there was clean air and that there's dirty air. And I, once I went back inside again, I realized that I couldn't take it anymore. I got sick and tired of being sick and tired."
The wrestling superstar is now married to his girlfriend Jennifer McDaniel.
"Oprah: Where Are They Now?" airs Sundays at 10 p.m. on OWN.
