Brooke Hogan has opened up in a deeply personal and emotional interview following the passing of her father, WWE Hall of Famer Hulk Hogan. Speaking with TMZ’s Harvey Levin, she addressed the pain of their two-year estrangement, her decision not to attend his funeral, and why she requested to be removed from his will. While the reasons behind her choices have sparked speculation, Brooke revealed she was motivated by a desire to protect herself and her children from what she saw as a toxic environment around her father in his final years. These claims echo sentiments she shared during an appearance on The Bubba The Love Sponge Show earlier this week, but were expanded upon in greater detail during her conversation with TMZ.

Brooke clarified that her estrangement from her father was not rooted in a lack of love, but rather a boundary she felt she needed to establish due to the influence of those in his inner circle. “My dad and I have been through a lot of stuff over the years… I still have his back,” she said. “The estrangement is a boundary… I didn’t like certain people that he was around… I did not trust, that I had seen behavior in. And I said, ‘Dad flashing yellow signs, like, hey, this is messed up. Like, are you going to do anything about it?’ And my dad was never alone. He was always with someone… most of those people I did not like.” She recalled his response being, “well, I guess you have to live your life, and I have to live mine.”

Her absence from the funeral also sparked questions, but Brooke said it was in accordance with her father’s own wishes. “My dad told me, specifically multiple times, just burn me up and put me in the back of the ocean behind my house,” she explained. “He didn’t like the morbidity of funerals. He hated it. And quite honestly, if he knew he were being carted around for two weeks for show with people that didn’t really know him… he would hate that.” Brooke instead paid tribute privately: “The closest way I could get to him was to put my feet in the ocean with my children. And that is, I’m standing by that, and that is my God’s honest truth.”

In a particularly revealing moment, Brooke shared why she made the difficult decision to remove herself from her father’s will. She feared being caught up in potential disputes over his estate, citing past family behavior. “I know my family… and I’ve seen how certain members of my family go after money, and I see how they fight over money,” she explained. “And I said, if and when my dad dies, this is going to be, pardon my French, a sh*tshow, and I want no part of it.”

Her concern ran even deeper. “I don’t want to fight Linda. I don’t want to fight Scientology. I don’t want somebody that I love to get knocked off. I don’t know how deep this stuff goes. It scared me. And I just said, ‘I want out.’” Brooke became emotional as she remembered sending the message: “I was sobbing when I wrote the text… I just said, ‘Take me off everything, I just , I don’t want to be a part of it.’”

She also addressed what she claims are false stories being spread about her since her father’s death, including accusations that she returned gifts and sought forgiveness. “My dad was not one to put things in a box… my dad sent flowers,” she said. “You can’t return flowers.” She believes the people behind these stories are those who once relied on Hulk Hogan financially. “Everybody else relied on him for a paycheck, and now that golden goose is gone,” she stated. “So I don’t know if I’m their emotional, you know, guilty punching bag, or if they are afraid of what I know, because I know a lot that I don’t talk about.”

Brooke then shared that her father had opened up to her with concerns about his third marriage to Sky Daily. “He was kind of telling me there was a worry in his voice,” she said. One moment stuck with her in particular. “He said something to me that really took me aback. And he said, ‘if I broke up with her, it’d be bad.’ And I said, ‘What do you mean by that?’… And he goes, ‘I don’t want to get into it.’”

She also spoke about the lingering emotional scars from the 2012 sex tape scandal, which included her father making racist remarks about her then-boyfriend. “I still get nasty comments that I have to hide,” Brooke revealed. “And through that whole sex tape drama, everybody focused on Hulk said the N-word… but I never got a direct apology for that. It was extremely embarrassing for me.”

To close the interview, Brooke issued a firm message to those she believes are spreading falsehoods about her. “Whatever representative from that camp continues to spew these lies, if they want to keep going, grab your best hold, grab your best lawyers, because I’m ready to go, because I’m done with it,” she stated. “My dad has finally been put to rest. Leave him alone. Leave me alone, and let the poor man go to heaven and just end it. Stop coming after me.”