Dwayne Johnson had a tough upbringing in Hawaii during his teenage years and after getting evicted from his apartment aged 14 he turned to crime and used to be part of a group who would target tourists. When asked what the groups were looking for he replied: ‘High-end clothes and jewellery.
In Waikiki there’s a couple high-end blocks where there’s your Prada, Chanel, Gucci, Armani, jewellery stores, plenty of jewellery stores. ‘There are a lot of tourists that come into Waikiki and there’s a lot of money.
A lot of foreign money that comes in, and we were part of a theft ring that would target those groups. We would target the money, we would target the high-end clothes and we would target the jewellery – turn around and sell it, best we could.’ While he was in trouble with the law at times, the star turned to muscle-building aged 14 to help him get over the pain of being evicted and admits it helped to a certain extent.
He added to Muscle and Fitness magazine: ‘At 14 when I started training, at 14 is when I also started getting arrested—for fighting, theft, all kinds of stupid s**t that I shouldn’t have been doing. ‘But, I still found time to go to the Boys Club every afternoon to hit the speed bag, hit the heavy bag, hit the iron. I was building my body because again, it’s that eviction mentality.
But, I would still f**k around, get in trouble and get arrested. I got arrested eight or nine times I think by the time I was 17.’ The ‘Hercules’ star also credits his muscle-building activity for helping him to deal with his depression. He explained: ‘There was never any medication. It was getting off my ass and being active and getting out and training. Releasing a lot of blood, sweat and respect—that was my medication. ‘I’m a long way from being evicted, but I’ll never forget it. I’ll never forget the feeling....
