Dwayne Johnson talks about ‘the worst pain I’ve ever felt’

Dwayne Johnson is getting candid about one of the most painful moments in his life.

The Smashing Machine star has broken bones, severed tendons, and suffered numerous brutal injuries across his wrestling career, but told the New York Times that he’s never experienced more pain than when he and his mother, Ata Johnson, were evicted from their Honolulu apartment. 

“The worst pain I’ve ever felt was when we were evicted from Hawaii and I was sent to Nashville to live with my dad,” he shared.

The actor was 15 at the time and living with just his mother, while his father, Rocky Johnson, was off wrestling in Tennessee. Though his parents were still married, their relationship was struggling, and Dwayne said he already considered himself the primary man in his mother’s life. So when they returned home to find an eviction notice on the apartment door, and his mother burst into tears, it was excruciating. 

“It hurt my heart,” he said. “It hurt my heart to see my mom like that.”

His mother made a plan to send him to live with his father in Nashville while she worked on shipping their car to the mainland and driving out with their belongings. When she contacted Rocky about it, he said, “No problem, I’ve got an apartment.”

But rather than being met at the Nashville airport by his father, Johnson was greeted by a man named Bob, who transported him to a motel where he was meant to stay. He quickly realized that his father was living elsewhere with another woman, which added a new element of pain to the situation.

“My heart hurts when I think about that,” he said. “The pain that my mom was driving with. Like: What is my life now? That whole time.”

Expecting to stay in her husband’s apartment, Ata instead arrived at the motel. According to Johnson, she immediately put the pieces together.

“That was it,” he said. “Within five minutes, it all just… It wasn’t even an explosion. It was just — a collapse.”

Later that day, Johnson witnessed his mother step out of Rocky’s car and walk straight into freeway traffic, with cars and trucks swerving to miss her. Johnson previously recounted this incident in 2018, while shooting a Ballers episode that grappled with a character’s suicide.

“Struggle and pain is real. We’ve all been there on some level or another,” he captioned an Instagram post. “My mom tried to check out when I was 15. She got outta the car on Interstate 65 in Nashville and walked into oncoming traffic. Big rigs and cars swerving outta the way not to hit her. I grabbed her and pulled her back on the gravel shoulder of the road. What’s crazy about that suicide attempt is to this day, she has no recollection of it whatsoever. Probably best she doesn’t. ”

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He added, “Shit of a scene to shoot — didn’t like it — but it did [serve as a] reminder that we always gotta do our best to really pay attention when people are in pain. Help ‘em thru it, get ‘em talkin’ about the struggle and remind ‘em that they’re not alone.”

Johnson, now a WWE legend who has also been immensely successful in Hollywood, has come a long way since the eviction, but says he held it close while filming The Smashing Machine, a biopic about legendary UFC Fighter Mark Kerr. The film chronicles Kerr’s rise and peak, including his struggles with addiction to painkillers, roller coaster relationship with Dawn Staples, and the lowest points of his career. When asked to conjure feelings of despair for the camera, Johnson reflected on that hopeless day.

“I went back to what it’s like being a 15-year-old kid and coming home and being evicted,” he told CBS News Sunday Mornings. Asked about ripping himself open emotionally, for the film, he added, “The thing that I was running from, which was ripping myself open, is actually the thing that I needed the most because it made me realize that the thing I love, which is acting and telling these stories, now I see it in a different world.”

The Smashing Machine arrives in theaters Oct. 3.