Hulk Hogan talks politics, Orlando on ‘Objectified’
Wrestling star Hulk Hogan talks politics, his belongings and his Orlando shop in the Fox News series “Objectified” this weekend.
“The wrestling memorabilia shop is a big deal to him,” host Harvey Levin said of Hogan’s Beach Shop on International Drive. “It also represents the future. I talked to him about running for office.”
The job: mayor. The city: unclear. The Hogan interview takes place in Orlando and outside Tampa, where he lives. “He’s got his tentacles in Orlando and Tampa,” Levin said.
The series, airing 8 p.m. Sunday, has lined up Arnold Schwarzenegger, Judge Judy Sheindlin and “Shark Tank” star Mark Cuban. President Donald Trump, then president-elect, starred in the pilot that aired in November. Guests discuss their belongings, a device designed to get them to open up.
Hogan talks about a rock that matters to him, a love letter and a notepad that he doodled on during the Gawker trial, Levin said. Hogan won $140 million in damages after Gawker Media published his sex tape.
“I get a sense of a guy not trying to justify mistakes, nor does he try to explain them,” Levin said. “He accepts that he screwed up from time to time in his life and, what he says, the best he can do is learn from it. He’s very open about what he did.”
Legal analyst Levin from TMZ wanted to understand Hogan’s motivations. “You sued, but by doing what you did, you opened up part of your life that is really unflattering and distasteful.” Levin said. “Why did he still choose to do it?”
Hogan says: “It was much bigger than me or much bigger than my career.”
He discusses flirting with suicide by putting a gun in his mouth. “I got to a point where everything kind of hit me at the same time,” Hogan tells Levin. “The divorce, my whole world falling apart, both of the kids with [exwife] Linda, and that’s how I ended up playing with the gun.”
Levin’s thoughts about other celebrities in “Objectified”:
Cuban: “I now would not at all be surprised if he runs for president in 2020.”
Schwarzenegger: “His relationship with Maria [Shriver] is the most surprising thing that came out of that. You know how rocky it was, and she filed for divorce. There’s a twist in all of this.”
Tyler Perry: “When you listen to him describe the pain of his childhood, by all rights, he probably shouldn’t be alive today, much less successful. It is the best story of perseverance that I think I’ve ever heard. Tyler Perry can make people who don’t believe in God rethink it.”
Trump: “I asked if him if Melania would dread the prospect of being first lady. He didn’t say she’d dread it, but he intimated it. When you watch it, you see this wasn’t something she was pining for.”
Levin said his style on “Objectified” is far different from the TMZ show’s jokey take on Hollywood. “I’ve been personally fascinated with autobiographies and biographies,” he said. “The techniques are completely different. I was a news reporter a long time.”
His approach: “You research a lot, you go into their home, you try to take them from childhood to now, then find common threads and ways of understanding these people.”