Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson isn’t as tough as you think

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is one of the toughest men in Hollywood, but sometimes his outer exterior can’t hide the pain he suffered within.

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is as solid as a rock, but the star’s tough outer exterior does not always represent what he’s feeling inside.

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In fact, the Pain & Gain actor has opened up about his battle with depression during his teenage years and how he and his mother were evicted from their home when he was just 14 years old.

“We were living in an efficiency that cost $120 a week,” he told The Hollywood Reporter. “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?'”

And it was that emotional event that changed Johnson. “That was the tipping point,” he told the mag. “It was about, ‘What can I control with these two hands?’ The only thing I could do was train and build my body. The successful men I knew were men who built their bodies.”

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Johnson went on to create a very impressive physique and worked hard at becoming a football player, even attending the University of Miami on a full football scholarship at age 18. However, an injury hurt the Fast & Furious star’s career, and this only added to his downward spiral of depression.

“I didn’t want to do a thing,” he recalled. “I didn’t want to go anywhere. I was crying constantly. Eventually you reach a point where you are all cried out.”

The injury was not the final nail in his football career’s coffin — Johnson wasn’t picked in the draft.

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“The dreams I had, they’re dashed,” he explained. “There is no more football. My relationship was crushed. That was my absolute worst time…I looked in my pocket, and I had seven bucks. Wow. Seven bucks to my name.”

However, Johnson didn’t allow his failures to define him, and his hardships have molded him into the man he has become today: a highly successful, generous and very well-paid Hollywood star.