Mark Henry opens up about Hulk Hogan refusing to give a proper apology for racist comments
While speaking to Inside The Ropes, WWE Hall of Famer Mark Henry opened up about the late Hulk Hogan (Terry Bollea) refusing to give a proper apology for racist comments…
“When I saw him, most people would be like, ‘Oh, f*ck him. I’m never going to speak to him again. I don’t care.’ I was hurt.
And I said, ‘Man, you mean to tell me all these years that we talked you don’t like me because of my color?’ ‘No, Mark. That’s bullsh*t. No.’
I said, ‘Well, what what’s the deal?’ He said he was upset. He don’t want to hear about his daughter having sex with nobody. ‘I was mad. I was half drunk and I was acting like I was a tough guy. And I embarrassed myself.’
And I said, ‘Well, fix it.’
I said, ‘There’s a lot of people that still love you. They just want to hear you apologize.’
And he said, ‘Well, I’ve been advised not to talk about it no more.’ I said, ‘That’s a bad decision.’
[Did you get the sense that he really was sorry about it?] Yeah. I thought—I was like, ‘Man, look, you’re not a tough guy.’ I said, ‘Stop playing the role.’ I said, ‘Why? you value Hulk Hogan so much that Terry Bollea got to suffer.’
And he just dropped his head and wouldn’t look at me. And I said, ‘Listen man, I’m telling you it can be fixed.’
And then Vince [McMahon] called me and said, ‘Hey, I want to hear your opinion on this. Terry said that you said it could be fixed.’ And I said, ‘It can be, but he got to apologize. And he got to go to some of the black colleges, law schools, and he got to talk to them and tell them why it is he did what he did. At the worst of it, minimally, me being in the place was a bad decision. What I did with my buddy and his wife was a bad decision. Drinking and doing drugs was a bad decision. Everything about it was bad. And then what I SAID was bad. I was just surrounded by bad and evil and no good. I’m sorry.’ Would have got fixed.
And he wouldn’t do it.
And now he’s not here to defend himself about it no more and he can’t apologize now.
But I’ve had people that are very close to him tell me how he wish that he would have did it.
I text with his daughter recently. ‘Hey man, I appreciate—even under the circumstances—you still always looked at my father different. If you ever need me, I’m here because I want to try to help repair his legacy.’
When they get ready to, they can’t never apologize for him. No matter how much work that they do is is not going to fix it with black people, and white people that sympathize with black people, and white people that are just decent humans.
It’s not going to fix it now. But at least they will know when they go to glory that people won’t look at them as like, ‘Hey, you was a part of the problem, too.’
Because they don’t deserve that.”