Hulk Hogan sat down for an emotional interview Monday to publicly address his racism controversy and WWE ouster.
The six-time WWE World Heavyweight Champion appeared on "Good Morning America" for the first time since being fired from the WWE and he was asked point-blank if he was a racist.
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"No I'm not, I'm not a racist," Hogan said. "I never should have said what I said. It was wrong. I'm embarrassed by it, but a lot of people need to realize that you inherit things from the environment. And where I grew up was south Tampa and it was a really rough neighborhood, very low income, and all of my friends, we greeted each other saying that word. The word was just thrown around like it was nothing."
Audio surfaced last month of an irate Hogan in 2007 that portrayed him using the n-word while not realizing he was being recorded. Hogan was talking about a problem with his daughter, Brooke, and her then-boyfriend, who was black.
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"Out of everything that I've been through, this one hit me probably the hardest," Hogan said. "I was at the lowest point of my life to the point where I wanted to kill myself and I was really mad at my daughter -- for really no reason. I was upset over a situation that happened between her and her boyfriend and I had no idea I was being taped."
Hogan said it was "very fair" to say that he inherited a racial bias due to the environment he grew up in with his friends, both black and white. He also said his daughter was very forgiving and helped him through the current controversy.
In response to the audio hitting mainstream media outlets, the WWE swiftly fired Hogan and removed all mentions of him from its website. He also isn't listed on WWE.com as a Hall of Famer after being inducted into the Class of 2005.
Hogan said in the interview that it was "devastating" to have his image and likeness erased from the WWE "like I never existed."
"The Hulkster" also said he hopes that the fans will forgive him for what he did.
"Please forgive me," Hogan said. "Please forgive me. I'm a nice guy. I'm not the Hulk Hogan who rips his shirt off and bang, bang, bang slams giants. You know, I'm Terry Bollea. I'm just a normal man."
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