After his death on July 24, 2025, a private funeral service for Hulk Hogan was held on Tuesday, August 5. His daughter Brooke Hogan did not attend the funeral. She explained why that decision made sense for her based on her relationship with her father and her understanding of what he wanted.
Brooke said her dad didn’t want a funeral.
In choosing to not attend her father’s funeral, Brooke believes she was honoring his wishes. In an Instagram post shared on August 5, she explained her thought process. “My father hated the morbidity of funerals,” she wrote. “He didn’t want one.”
She acknowledged that she had no problem with a funeral being held, but she didn’t wish to attend. “And although I know people grieve in many ways — and I’m so grateful for all celebrations and events organized to honor him, as his daughter, I had to make my own decision to honor him the best and most genuine way I knew how … privately … the way that made me feel the closest to him,” Brooke explained.
Instead, she and her husband took their children to the beach.
For Brooke, honoring her late father looked like taking her twins to the beach, where “the only thing missing was him in is pop up lawn chair watching the waves … and the sunset.”
“Daddy, we honored you in the simplest way that agreed with my soul,” she continued in her post. “We took our babies to the beach, and put them in the same salty waters you loved. Molly loved the water. I think she’ll be a ‘little fish’ as you called me. We love you and honor the things that made you so special.”
She and her dad had a complicated relationship.
Over the past couple of years, Brooke had been estranged from her father. In another post after his death, she explained that they “never had a ‘big fight.'” Instead, “it was a series of private phone calls no one will ever hear, know, or understand.”
She described being a “life raft” for her dad and urging him to take care of himself, as “he was getting older.” Prior to their estrangement, Brooke had moved to Florida to be closer to her father and was involved in his medical care, until “something shifted.”
“We had been through almost 25 surgeries together, and then all of a sudden he didn’t want me at surgeries,” Brooke wrote. Suddenly, it felt like “there was a force field around him.” She said she and her father had some “respectful disagreements that took an emotional toll on” her.
Her husband stayed in touch with her father.
In the vulnerable post, Brooke explained that she “had to step away to protect [her] heart” over the past two years. However, her husband remained in some level of contact with Hulk. “My husband stayed open, quietly reaching out to my dad without me knowing, trying to find a safe way back in for me,” she wrote.
During an exclusive interview with People, Brooke’s husband, Steven Oleksy, confirmed that he “remained in contact with members of [Brooke’s] family to try to keep that door open.” At the same time, he wanted to “protect [his] family and [his] wife at all costs.”
Steven also shut down rumors that the tension was caused by Hulk’s wife, Sky Daily. He told the publication that the estrangement “had nothing to do with his new wife” and “had to do with the way [Hulk] treated [Brooke].”
