Remember how last week I was telling you that Hulk Hogan got dumped by his wife? Well, apparently the whole story gets even worse than this: Linda Hogan (by her true name Linda Marie Bollea) filled the divorce papers at Pinellas County court on Tuesday, but didn't bother to let her soon-to-be ex husband know that she was leaving him after 24 years of marriage.
Hulk - real name Terry Gene Bollea - apparently heard the news by phone from a reporter who called him last Friday to get his reaction to the divorce. The star was so shocked that he could only thank the journalist for the "great information" after which he hung up the phone. He then called back five minutes later and said: "I'm kind of shocked. You caught me off-guard. My wife has been in California for about three weeks. Holly smokes. Wow, you just knocked the bottom out of me. I just pulled over to the side of the road for five minutes to find out what was going on here".
By the sound of that, communication in the Hogan family doesn't seem to be among the top priorities. The 53-year-old former wrestler married Linda in 1983 and the couple has two children, 19-year-old daughter Brooke, an aspiring singer, and 17-year-old son Nick - who has been in the news over the past months less for his own personal merits and more for having been involved in a serious car crash, which left his front seat passenger crippled for life.
The fact is, the Hogans have proved themselves extremely lenient with Nick, before and after the drag-racing accident, and have ever since done everything in their power to deflect blame for the August crash, which left his passenger, a young Marine, in a vegetative state for life. Instead of saying he's deeply sorry and will have to live every day for the rest of his life with the knowledge that he almost killed a friend, 17 year-old Nick Hogan showed no apparent remorse. At the beginning of this month, however, charges were pressed against Nick, who was arrested for that accident and accused of third-degree felony reckless driving.
My point is, I'm sure that having your 17 year-old son out on bail awaiting trial can't actually help a marriage that seemed on the rocks ever since the family starred together in VH1 reality show "Hogan Knows Best" - where, if memory serves, they were shown on the verge of divorce, but they attended counseling together and reconciled, probably for the sake of the cameras. But, they seemed to have postponed the inevitable long enough - and are now faced with a really unpleasant situation. I hope they manage to keep the whole thing as quiet as possible - although you never know.
