Brooke Hogan Says Hulk Hogan’s Affair With Her Friend Changed Their Relationship Forever

Brooke Hogan says she forgave her late father, Hulk Hogan, for sleeping with one of her closest friends. Forgiveness, however, did not restore what he broke.

In a new interview with Us Weekly, Brooke identified Hulk’s affair with Christiane Plante as a defining moment in their relationship.

“A major turning point came after he slept with my friend Christiane,” Brooke said. Although she forgave him, she admitted that “something between us changed afterward.”

Yes, sleeping with your daughter’s friend will do that. Christiane was not 18, as some online discussions have claimed. Contemporary reports identified her as 33 when she publicly acknowledged the affair in 2008. She had worked with Brooke on her 2006 CD release and was described as one of her close friends.

That correction matters, but it does not make Hulk’s decision respectable. He was a wealthy, internationally famous man in his fifties who became involved with a woman his daughter considered a close friend. Christiane was an adult capable of making her own decisions, but Hulk was Brooke’s father. He carried the greater responsibility for protecting that relationship.

Christiane said the affair began after Hulk and Linda Hogan privately accepted that their marriage was ending. Linda filed for divorce in November 2007, and their divorce became final in 2009.

Perhaps the marriage was already finished behind closed doors. That still does not explain why Hulk selected someone from his daughter’s life. There are billions of adults on the planet who are not your child’s friend.

Brooke said the divorce dismantled the family structure around her. Brooke described a home in which love coexisted with dysfunction, fear, resentment, betrayal, money, fame, image management and decades of unresolved hurt. Eventually, even the bond she had once believed could survive anything collapsed.

Her account is surprisingly generous. Brooke said Hulk had been an excellent father for much of her childhood and that she once felt completely safe with him. She refuses to rewrite every happy memory simply because their later relationship became painful.

That is considerably more grace than many parents would receive from a child placed in this position.

The disturbing boundaries were not confined to one parent. After separating from Hulk, Linda began dating 19-year-old Charley Hill when she was 48. Hill had attended school with Brooke and Nick Hogan. Linda later admitted that she deliberately flaunted the relationship because she wanted her estranged husband to experience some of the pain his cheating caused.

Unfortunately, their children were caught inside that retaliation. Revenge against a cheating spouse should not involve dating someone from your children’s school circle and turning the family wreckage into more reality television.

Hulk later won a landmark privacy lawsuit against Gawker after the website published an excerpt from a secretly recorded sex tape. Billionaire Peter Thiel covertly financed the case because he held his own grievance against the outlet. Hogan was entitled to challenge the publication of intimate footage recorded without his consent. That victory did not erase the pain his private choices caused other people.

Brooke’s new single, “Goes Around,” addresses her family’s dysfunction. The timing naturally helps promote the song, but her account is not a simple publicity attack on a dead parent. She describes a father she loved, a betrayal she tried to forgive and damage that forgiveness could not repair.

Hulk and Linda spent years trying to hurt each other. Their children were left to live with the consequences.