Hulk Hogan’s Legacy Tested: TMZ Doc Revisits Racist Remarks and Fallout
Jaden Patel here. I have the face for radio and the opinions for late-night commentary, so let’s get this over with.
TMZ Presents: The Real Hulk Hogan pulls no punches in revisiting how decades of wrestling stardom collided with a scandal that redefined Hulk Hogan’s public legacy. The documentary recounts the 2007 incident in which Hogan used a racial slur on a private sex tape, an episode that resurfaced in 2015 and led to his firing from WWE. That firing, and the fallout that followed, are examined through interviews with people who knew him and were hurt by his words, as well as voices who defend the totality of his career.
Vince McMahon, the one-time CEO of WWE, is on camera calling Hogan’s language unforgivable and saying the comments were out of step with the man McMahon had known professionally. That remark anchors a larger point in the film: when someone is the face of a billion-dollar spectacle, private mistakes quickly become public history. Former WWE star Mark Henry also appears, describing personal pain from Hogan’s comments and how they landed like a betrayal to colleagues and fans who had trusted Hogan as a figurehead in a multiracial locker room.
The documentary doesn’t stop at condemnation. It revisits Hogan’s own public reckoning. In a 2017 episode of OBJECTified with Harvey Levin, Hogan denied being a racist and framed the scandal as a wake-up call, saying the controversy taught him about the power of words. That apology and self-reflection are shown alongside reactions that are less forgiving. Mick Foley, another former champion, offers a sympathetic counterpoint, saying he prefers to remember Hogan’s contributions to wrestling and believes judgment based solely on one awful episode can ignore a lifetime of positive actions.
Not everyone agrees with Foley’s calculus. The film highlights how even some long-time fans turned on Hogan, a fact punctuated by reports of boos at his final live wrestling appearance before his death. Bill Goldberg, who shared the ring with Hogan and later commented publicly, explains how the backlash and crowd reaction reflected a broader re-evaluation of celebrity accountability. The documentary uses these firsthand accounts to pose a simple question: can a towering public persona be separated from the person who slipped up in private?
Context matters in the film. It traces Hogan’s rise from regional star to global phenomenon, showing why his words carried such weight. It also makes clear that consequences were immediate and tangible. WWE removed Hogan from company-sanctioned honors, cut ties, and faced pressure from fans and corporate partners. The presentation is careful to include the timeline: the tape was recorded in 2007, leaked to the public in 2015, Hogan was fired that year, and his public statements and interviews attempting to explain or atone came in the years after, notably in 2017.
The documentary doesn’t hand down a final verdict. Instead it places Hogan’s controversy in the court of public opinion, where verdicts are messy and often split. It gives voice to the people Hogan wronged, the colleagues who still admired his ring craft, and Hogan himself, who insisted he had changed. For viewers, the takeaway is uncomfortable but clear: fame magnifies failure and forgiveness is complicated when the offense is racial in nature.
TMZ Presents: The Real Hulk Hogan premieres tonight at 8 PM ET on FOX and will be available the next day on Hulu. Tune in if you want a balanced dossier that is as much about celebrity consequence as it is about one man’s attempt at redemption. And if you don’t, that’s fair too; there will be other scandals to dissect tomorrow.
Final note: humanity is messy and WWE contracts are not.
Sources: Celebrity Storm and TMZ, OBJECTified (Harvey Levin), FOX, Hulu
Attribution: Creative Commons Licensed
