Emily Mack
Everyone loves The Rock. But for five half siblings, scattered across North America, watching his star rise was a hurtful reminder of the shared father who neglected them. A new exposé by Sports Illustrated reveals that famed Canadian pro-wrestler Rocky Johnson, who raised Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, fathered five other children — and completely neglected them.
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Rocky Johnson
Rocky Johnson was a decorated professional wrestler for nearly 30 years and won the World Tag Team Championship in 1983. But perhaps his most notable achievement is the training of his son, Dwayne, who would go on to become an international superstar: The Rock. Rocky was instrumental in Dwayne’s instruction, and also in his marketing. The two had a very public relationship. But Rocky was a complicated guy.
Rocky mistreated his wife, Dwayne’s mother Ata Maivia, once abandoning her on the side of a highway. He was accused of rape in 1987, a charge which got him blackballed from the wrestling community, leading to years of alcoholism.
Rocky and Dwayne eventually reconciled, though, and were on good terms around the time of Rocky’s death in 2020 at the age of 75.
‘Young Rock’
Dwayne Johnson’s NBC sitcom Young Rock follows his real-life story of growing up in Hawaii and becoming a professional wrestler. And though he was raised by Rocky Johnson, it does not dance around the man’s… rocky past. Rocky is presented as both an attentive father and something of a con man. This is fitting with Dwayne’s own descriptions of his father; he once accused Rocky’s autobiography Soulman as having “aggrandized his father at the expense of the truth.”
Rocky Johnson’s Other Children
Prior to his marriage with Ata Maivia, Rocky Johnson was married to Una Sparks and had two children with her: Wanda and Curtis Bowles. But Rocky left that family for a life on the road, and did not do much to maintain a relationship with elder children. His life with Ata and young Dwayne became his — famous — focus.
But that’s not the full story.
A new documentary explores the lives of five of Rocky’s other children, who he refused to acknowledge or support: Paula Parsons (b. 1964), Trevor Edwards (b. 1967), Lisa Purves (b. 1968), Adrian Bowles (b. 1970), and Aaron Fowler. In the recent Sports Illustrated piece, each describes the torment they felt at being rejected by their own dad.
“I thought of my father every day of my life. Standing in a mirror, looking into my eyes, having a conversation with myself about why [he left],” Bowles said. And his half siblings echoed the dark feelings. Purves, who works in the film industry, said “I never wanted to run into Dwayne and have anyone know I was his bastard sister.”
But there is a happy endind. Using DNA testing, these scattered half siblings eventually found each other as adults and are now extremely close. They also got in contact with Rocky’s brother, another pro-wrestler, Ricky, who has helped the unconventional family take shape.
The fact that Rocky ignored so many of his children was always a point of contention between the brothers. And he has tried to become something of a patriarch for the forgotten Johnson offspring.
One of Rocky’s secret daughters, Lisa Purves is a filmmaker and is working on a documentary about their biological journey: Just Call Me Lisa.
