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Hulk Hogan: Use of N-word was ‘part of my daily environment’ while growing up

Hulk Hogan blames racist environment of his upbringing for use of racial slur.

Hulk Hogan blames racist environment of his upbringing for use of racial slur.

(Evan Agostini / Invision / AP)
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Hulk Hogan is expressing more remorse for his use of the N-word in reference to his daughter Brooke’s former boyfriend, apologizing again for his “foul” and “devastating” remarks.

In July, an 8-year-old audio transcript of the professional wrestler’s tirade was made public via an unauthorized sex tape and the former wrestler faced a major fallout, including the WWE terminating its 30-year association with him and wiping him from its Hall of Fame.

Hogan, whose real name is Terry Bollea, issued an apology at the time and elaborated on the ordeal in an interview with “Good Morning America” on Monday and another with People published on Wednesday.

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“I’m not a racist but I never should have said what I said. It was wrong. I’m embarrassed by it,” he told ABC News’ Amy Robach. “People need to realize that you inherit things from your environment. And where I grew up was south Tampa, Port Tampa, and it was a really rough neighborhood, very low income. And all my friends, we greeted each other saying that word.”

He added that the N-word was “just thrown around like it was nothing.”

The 62-year-old reiterated those lines to People, saying again that “it was a part of my daily environment.”

The reality star described the Florida town, which was still segregated while he was growing up, as a “small fish bowl” and said that when he broke out of that environment as a wrestling star, he realized the rest of the world wasn’t like his hometown.

“I realized right away that I had to reeducate myself,” he told the mag. “When you inherit something that is passed on generation to generation to generation, it becomes a practice. You have to be aware of it. I realized this behavior and this type of verbiage is unacceptable. So for me to digress and say something so foul is devastating.”

Despite the public fallout, Hogan said it brought him closer to his daughter. Brooke told the mag that her father is many things, but racist isn’t one of them.

“What he said was not right, but I know that’s not who he is,” the 27-year-old reality star told the mag. “He has told me that he made some really bad choices, but that it never changed that I was his baby girl and he loved me and he would be lost without his kids.”

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Meanwhile, the 12-time world wrestling champ is embroiled in a legal battle with Gawker Media, suing the company for $100 million for releasing excerpts from the sex tape, which was allegedly recorded without his knowledge between 2006 and 2007. Gawker asserts that the racist recording is from a different tape that is not part of the recording, ABC News said.

Follow me on Twitter @NardineSaad.

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