Proud dad Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson said “it blows my mind” that his teen daughter joined the WWE.
“She signed her contract with the WWE [World Wrestling Entertainment], and you know, it’s just — it blows my mind,” Dwayne, 48, said of his 18-year-old daughter Simone Alexandra Johnson on Friday’s The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.
“I mean, first all, what an honor that my daughter wants to follow in my footsteps, but more importantly…she actually wants to create and blaze her own path which is just so important,” he told Fallon over video chat.
Back in February, the teen officially joined the WWE, per a press release on the organization’s website. “It means the world to me,” Simone said in the release. “To know that my family has such a personal connection to wrestling is really special to me and I feel grateful to have the opportunity, not only to wrestle, but to carry on that legacy.”
Dwayne, a 10-time world champion, told Fallon that Simone is the youngest signee in the history of the company. “At 16, she was working her a** off quietly under the radar, in the ring, getting thrown around, and you know, all the bumps and bruises that go with pro wrestling.” He added, “…I’m very, very proud of her.”
The actor shares Simone with ex-wife Dany Garcia and has two more daughters with wife Lauren Hashian: Tiana, 2, and Jasmine, 4. The actor, who earned his nickname “The Rock” in the ring, is the son of wrestler Rocky Johnson, who died in January, and the grandson of wrestler Peter “High Chief” Fanene Maivia. The Moana star’s first stage name was “Rocky Maivia” which he later shortened to “The Rock.”
In August, he told Live with Kelly and Ryan, “I quietly retired from wrestling because I was lucky enough to have just a really wonderful career and accomplish what I wanted to accomplish.” He added, “But there’s nothing like a live crowd, a live audience, a live microphone…and it was funny because I credit my time and my journey in pro wrestling to getting me to where I am at today.”
In February, Simone told the WWE, “…I have loved wrestling for as long as I can remember and now that I have the opportunity to finally pursue that, I don’t know, I can put it into words.” She also credited her grandmother with sparking her interest by showing her wrestling matches on television as a child.
The Rock often cheers his family’s successes — on Instagram, he explained how him and Hashian were improving their marriage during lockdown (by using humor) and he celebrated Tia’s April birthday by gushing on Instagram, “Spending every day, all day with my girls has been the best silver lining blessing during this challenging pandemic.”
