By the time he reached the age of 6, Rocky began training Dwayne on the mat, instilling in him the basics of pro wrestling. Their relationship would grow more complicated over time, and Johnson discussed the fact that his parents were separated by the time he was 13. Similarly, Rocky was kicked out of his home at 13, with his mother siding with her alcoholic boyfriend over her son.

"That's a hard place to come back from," Johnson said. "That will inform how you love people and what you care for in life and how you care about people. So it was really f***ed up — that really damaged my dad. So his limited capacity to love is what raised me."

Johnson noted that he did not believe his father was happy that Dwayne entered the wrestling business, but he was proud of his son nonetheless. Rocky died in 2020, never having fully repaired his relationship with Dwayne. However, Dwayne doesn't seem to harbor negative feelings over the situation, which is something that changed after his father's death.

"We still had a contentious kind of complicated relationship when he was alive," Johnson stated. "He dies suddenly four years ago, and you don't get a chance to say goodbye, you don't get a chance to right the s**t that you want to [make] right. ... You look at things differently."