An old clip of The Rock has resurfaced, revealing the personal cost behind his global fame.
Dwayne Johnson is, without a doubt, one of the most recognizable faces on the planet. While he was already popular during his WWE days, his transition to Hollywood elevated him to megastar status.
But, as the Million Dollar Man Ted DiBiase once said, “everybody has a price.” For Johnson, fame has come at the cost of losing his privacy. During a previous interview with Complex’s Speedy Morman, The Rock was candidly asked if he remembers what it feels like to not be famous.
“Yeah, way back in the day. I’ve been famous for some time, but yes, I remember what that’s like. And so I love that you asked that, because it reminds me of something that people will always ask me. They say, ‘Do you ever get tired of it? Tired of… you can’t go out, everything is back door, through the kitchen… nothing is through the front door. Hotels, it doesn’t matter. Everything is a setup, everything is… you gotta call ahead and you can’t go anywhere like malls or even take walks.’ That’s not in my cards anymore,” he explained.
The Rock explains why he never gets tired of fame
The Rock said that when people ask if he ever gets tired of fame, his answer is always no. He explained that the only alternative would be returning to the days when he wasn’t famous and struggled financially. While he never expected fame to make people care about him, those earlier hardships remind him why he values his current life, and he has no desire to go back to that period.
“And they say, ‘Do you get tired of that?’ And I go, ‘No, never.’ And it’s true, because the alternative is going back to those days you just mentioned, when I wasn’t famous and no one cared. No one gave a sh*t. Not that I wanted people to care, but that time reminds me of when things were hard and I didn’t have any money. I don’t want to go back to that.
“So I will never complain about fame. And also, I feel the best part of fame is just being able to create experiences with people when I meet people, you know?”
Johnson explained that his fame began to escalate significantly in the early 2000s when he rose to prominence as “The Rock” in wrestling, a level of recognition he did not fully anticipate but experienced during a time when WWE was at its peak. However, he noted that his popularity reached an even greater scale after transitioning to Hollywood, where he became globally recognized in a completely different way.
He added that this level of fame made travel particularly challenging, especially in airports and on commercial flights. Johnson shared that he would typically board planes last, and whenever possible, he would purchase the seat next to him to ensure privacy and avoid sitting beside anyone so he could rest during the flight.
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