The Rock Shares The Full Eulogy He Gave At His Dad's Funeral
The Rock’s dad Rocky Johnson died from a heart attack at the age of 75
Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson shared his emotional eulogy to his late father Rocky Johnson on Instagram, giving fans insight into just how much his dad meant to him and captioning the video in part, “You loved us with the capacity of which you could — given all the givens.”
In a video shared on Friday from his father’s funeral last month, Johnson was emotional, talking about his dad’s life and all he accomplished before he suffered a heart attack at 75 years of age. “Man, I wish I had…I wish I had one more shot,” Johnson began. “I wish I had one more shot to say goodbye…to say I love you, to say thank you, but I have a feeling he’s watching. He’s listening.”
Johnson talked about where he was when he learned his father had passed away. “I’m literally just pulling in and I’m looking at the whole crew, hundreds of guys and women milling around, carrying equipment and waving at me in the truck, and I’m waving back and it all got really foggy and it seemed like it was a big dream,” he said of pulling up to a production set and learning his dad died. “You know how you have those moments where you try and shake yourself out of it, and you’re like ‘No, it’s not a dream…My dad’s gone.’”
He said he was wondering what he should do next and heard a voice that said, “‘Well, hey, the show must go on,’ and that was my dad. That was my old man who told me that.”
The father-of-three went on to talk about his father’s wrestling career and the legacy he left behind. He called his dad a “trailblazer,” saying he had “the ability to change behavior and audience’s behavior, people’s behavior…[my dad] broke into the business in the mid-’60s and throughout the late ’60s and into the ’70s in the United States where racial tension and divide was very strong.” He said he fought hard to be respected, eventually earning fan’s praise.
He continued: “When you think of my dad’s name, you think ‘hard work.’ You think ‘barrier-breaking,’ you think being the hardest worker in the room, always working out. He taught me how to work out at a very young age,” he said. “Hard work, discipline — those are things and tenants that are synonymous with my dad’s name.”
Johnson finished his speech by reminding others to hold on tight to their loved ones because you never know what tomorrow will bring. “Guaranteed when we walk out of these doors, we’re going to hold each other a bit tighter, we’re going to hug each other a bit harder, we’re going to kiss each other and we’re going to say, ‘I love you,’” he said. “And we’re going to be a bit more present.”
