Celebrity Estate Planning - Estate of Hulk Hogan (Terry Gene Bollea) - Episode 225
- Jenny Rozelle, Host of Legal Tea
- 14 hours ago
- 8 min read
Hey there, Legal Tea Listeners! This is your host, Jenny Rozelle. We are here for episode 225 –and we are circling back to an “estate planning of the rich and famous” episode where we chat about celebrities and their estate planning (or lack thereof!). Today’s episode is on Hulk Hogan – absolutely one of the most famous professional wrestlers. As you likely could guess, Hulk Hogan was not his real name – his legal name was Terry Gene Bollea (Buh-lay-uh), but his “ring name” was Hulk Hogan, so way, way more people know him as Hulk Hogan than as Terry Gene Bollea. Anyway, he passed away earlier this year in July 2025, and I think enough time has passed to fill an episode on his estate and what is going on. Though, as we normally do on these celebrity estate plan episodes, I like to give a quick crash course on him, as a person and professional, first before we dive into his estate.
Alright, so Hulk Hogan is basically THE GUY who made professional wrestling a household name in America. We are talking about someone who transcended the sport itself and became this larger-than-life cultural icon in the 1980s and 1990s. He has that instantly recognizable look: the bleached blonde hair, the handlebar mustache, the 24-inch pythons he would constantly flex for the crowd. But beyond the persona, he was legitimately one of the most charismatic performers in wrestling history. He had this natural ability to work a crowd, get people on their feet, and make them believe in the good guy overcoming impossible odds. His run with the WWF (now WWE) in the 1980s essentially launched wrestling into the mainstream – many would argue that WrestleMania would not have become what it is without Hulkamania leading the charge. He was the face of the company during its golden era, feuding with legends like André the Giant, "Macho Man" Randy Savage, and countless others.
His professional legacy got seriously tarnished in the 2010s. According to Biography.com, in 2015, a sex tape leaked along with audio of Hogan using racial slurs during a private conversation. WWE cut ties with him – including essentially erased him from their Hall of Fame website, terminated his contract, the whole deal. It was a stunning fall from grace for someone who had been wrestling royalty for decades. He eventually apologized and was quietly reinstated to the WWE Hall of Fame in 2018, but the damage was done. Despite all that controversy, you cannot really tell the story of American pop culture in the 1980s without talking about Hulk Hogan. He was on magazine covers, in movies, had his own cartoon series - he was everywhere. Love him or hate him, the guy fundamentally changed what it meant to be a professional wrestler and showed that wrestlers could be legitimate mainstream celebrities.
Now, his personal life, on the other hand, was pretty complicated and very public. According to Wikipedia, he married Linda Claridge in 1983, and they had two kids together - Brooke and Nick. The family became even more famous in the mid-2000s when they starred in a VH1 reality show called "Hogan Knows Best," which gave everyone a window into their lives in Clearwater, Florida. Brooke tried to launch a music career, and the show documented all the typical family drama you would expect. But things took a dark turn when his son, Nick, was involved in a serious car accident in 2007 that left his passenger with permanent brain damage. Nick served time in jail for that.
Also in 2007, Linda filed for divorce, and it got really messy and public - there were allegations of affairs on both sides, bitter custody battles over the kids, and it all played out in tabloids of course. Hogan did end up getting married again to Jennifer McDaniel in 2010, but they eventually divorced in 2021. A couple years later, in 2023, he became engaged to a lady named Melanie Sky Daily, and they got married a couple months later (so in 2023). They remained married until his death in 2025. One last thing on his family – his daughter, Brooke, had two children (so that’d be Hogan’s two grandchildren) in early 2025, and sadly, he never had a chance to meet them before his death. Speaking of his death – he passed away on July 24, 2025 from a heart attack, according to ABC News.
Shortly following his death, of course headlines started popping about his estate – did he have a Will? What about his wife, Melanie Sky, that he had so recently married? And what about his two kids – Brooke and Nick? Well, one of the first few headlines involved Brooke, his daughter, not being included in his estate plan – and that was kind of the hot thing to talk about for a while, so let’s get into ALL of that – what has happened, where things stand now, and what we can learn from his estate and estate plan.
So, first, I can confirm he did have an estate plan – at minimum, a Last Will and Testament, and there are some reports that he had a Trust or multiple Trusts, too, but often, Trusts stay private and are out of the Court proceedings, so … so far, I have not seen anything 100% confirming anything about Trusts. So that’s just kind of a “maybe” right now. At least, like I said, he minimally had a Will, though. Something else that has been reported all over the place, but not really confirmed is the value of his estate – I’ve seen $5 Million like on People.com, which seems incredibly low for someone like him, and I’ve seen $25 Million estate value in various other sources. And both of these unconfirmed things COULD be related – what I mean by that is according to People, the Court records show $5 Million going through his Will through probate – so MAYBE the other assets in his estate are held in Trust. That would definitely make it all make sense, if it were true. And I bet it is true – because in the Court records, it does not list anything about his real estate and it’s well known and documented he had, at least, two real estate properties in Florida.
For now, all I can talk about is what the Will says and deals with – since nothing about a Trust has been released, so the Will was filed in a Florida probate court. According to US Weekly, that Will and the Court records basically tell us the following things: 1) The Will named his son, Nick, and a friend and professional by the name of Terry McCoy as Co-Executors of his Estate, 2) The Will was created in 2016 and amended several times in 2017, 2021, 2022, and a last time in July 2023 (interesting that’s when he married Melanie Sky – which is probably not a coincidence), and 3) The Will left everything to his son, Nick, only – it did reference his surviving spouse, but it did NOT include his daughter, Brooke, as a beneficiary. This is what so many news and tabloids ran with – but here’s the thing, there’s more to the story (there usually is!). Reportedly, Brooke asked NOT to be included his father’s Will – not for any dramatic reason, actually quite the opposite. In an interview on CBS News, Attorney Danielle Mayoras explained that Brooke supposedly asked not to be included “because she didn’t want to deal with any family drama or tension down the road.”
Before I give some concluding thoughts about how this may help you in you estate planning journey, two other quick things I want to mention – in the estate process, the Court records show two adjacent lawsuits that may involve his estate. First, according to US Weekly, Nick, his son / Co-Executor, filed a lawsuit against Bubba The Love Sponge in an attempt to stop him from releasing a documentary which supposedly was going to talk about Hogan’s sex tape. There’s been some back-and-forth about that, including from Bubba The Love Sponge arguing that the documentary actually portrays Hogan in a positive light. The second and more of a potential lawsuit, accordingly to US Weekly and TMZ, that I don’t think has been filed yet is that his widow, Melanie Sky, is supposedly considering a medical malpractice lawsuit against the Doctor(s) that did a recent neck surgery on Hogan – which she claims was not done properly. Alright, let’s shift now to some takeaways from Hogan’s estate and what we can learn from it…
First, the power of communication in estate planning. It may be the biggest takeaway from Hogan's whole situation—and it's actually a really positive one. His daughter, Brooke, reportedly was not left out of the Will because of some family feud or because her dad was mad at her. She actually asked not to be included. Think about that for a second. She had an actual conversation with her father and said, "Hey, I don't want to be in your Will because I don't want to deal with potential family drama down the road." And he respected that wish. That is estate planning done right. How many families have we seen torn apart because someone gets the Will after a death and there are all these surprises nobody saw coming? People feel blindsided, they feel hurt, and suddenly you have siblings who have not spoken in years because they are fighting over what Mom or Dad "really meant." Brooke and her father avoided all of that by just... talking about it. Having those awkward conversations while everyone is still alive. Making sure everyone understands the plan and the reasoning behind it. Estate planning is not just about getting documents signed—it is also about communication and making sure your loved ones are not left guessing about your intentions or feeling like they have been slighted when you are no longer around to explain yourself.
Second, the strategy in estate planning for privacy. Another really interesting thing about Hogan's estate is this whole trust situation. The court records show about $5 million going through probate via his Will, which honestly seems pretty low for Hogan, right? The guy was a massive celebrity for decades. But here's the thing—there's no real estate listed in those court documents, and we know for a fact he owned at least two properties in Florida. So where are those assets? My educated guess is they are likely sitting in a trust. Trusts, so long as they are done right, stay private—they do not go through probate, they do not become public record, and nobody gets to snoop around in your business. For someone in the public eye like Hogan, that is a big deal. But it is also a good strategy for regular people who just want to keep things simple and private for their families. And speaking of keeping things current—notice how he updated his Will multiple times? He amended it in 2017, 2021, 2022, and then again in July 2023, right when he married Melanie Sky. This is not a coincidence. Your estate plan should evolve with your life. Marriages, divorces, new kids or grandkids, major purchases—all of these are reasons to dust off those documents and make sure they still reflect what you actually want. So far, and granted things may still happen since things are not totally wrapped up, so far I give Hulk Hogan a good grade when it comes to estate planning.
Alrighty, let’s wrap this one up and shift to a sneak peak at next week. Next week we’re back to a “cautionary tale” episode where we talk about real-life clients, real-life cases that I, or my office, have worked on -or- maybe they are just generally good things to know/be aware of so you don’t slip up and turn into a cautionary tale one day. In next week’s episode, we’re going to talk about a farm around the corner from my house and what has transpired with the ownership of it – following some deaths. It’s juicy, my friends, so tune in next week. Alrighty, Legal Tea Listeners, until then, take care and be well!
Sources: