“My dream was that I just didn't want to be evicted anymore”: Dwayne Johnson Recalls Tough Past

With a net worth of over $800 million today, and being one of the highest paid actors in the world, Dwayne Johnson went from being evicted early in his teens to becoming one of the biggest celebrities in the world, however his journey was anything but smooth.

Johnson grew up in a family of wrestlers. His father, Rocky Johnson, and grandfather, Peter Maivia, both had a legacy in the sport. Johnson initially began his journey with football but soon switched to professional wrestling. He took on the famous persona of The Rock. The sports entertainment world welcomed him and helped his career soar (via Looper).

The “Snitch” star revealed that growing up poor shaped his view of the world.

In an interview with Muscle & Fitness, Johnson said, “I always want to remind people of my past, because it is directly responsible for who I am today.”

"A lot of you guys know I grew up here in Hawaii with my family where we struggled, man, like a lot of you guys out there struggle to pay the rent, hustled, doing everything we could to get by," Johnson said in a video he posted on Instagram in June 2018. "You know, this life here, this was never my dream. My dream was that I just didn't want to be evicted anymore."

Johnson's early life was shaped by poverty and uncertainty. When he was just a child, his family faced eviction from their home, an experience that deeply affected him. He vividly remembers his mother's heartbreaking cries and the profound sense of helplessness that enveloped him during that time—experiences that shaped his resilience and determination in life.

“We were living in an efficiency [studio] that cost $120 a week,” Johnson told The Hollywood Reporter in 2014. “We come home, and there’s a padlock on the door and an eviction notice. My mom starts bawling. She just started crying and breaking down. ‘Where are we going to live? What are we going to do?’”

Johnson said that at around the age of 13, he started to “veer off the tracks” and turned to petty crime.

“I started getting arrested for fighting, theft, all kinds of stupid [stuff] that I shouldn’t have been doing,” he told The Sun.

It wasn’t until he was 18 that he began to channel his energy into bodybuilding, wrestling and NFL, ultimately leading to his pro wrestling and acting careers.

"I reeeeaaaaalllyy hated that feeling of helplessness and never wanted that to happen again," Johnson recalled in an Instagram post.