Hulk Hogan’s Wife Sky Daily’s Emotional Statement Reveals Wrestling Legend’s Final Struggles

Wrestling icon Hulk Hogan’s trag­ic death at 71 has exposed not only a heart­bro­ken fam­i­ly but also the com­plex finan­cial lega­cy of Amer­i­ca’s most rec­og­niz­able sports enter­tain­er. As wife Sky Dai­ly breaks her silence with an emo­tion­al trib­ute reveal­ing his health bat­tles, the spot­light turns to Hogan’s tumul­tuous finan­cial jour­ney marked by dev­as­tat­ing divorce set­tle­ments, legal vic­to­ries, and ambi­tious busi­ness ven­tures that shaped his $25 mil­lion estate.

Sky Daily’s Heartbreaking Revelation

In a gut-wrench­ing Insta­gram post fol­low­ing Hogan’s death from car­diac arrest on July 24, 2025, at his Clear­wa­ter, Flori­da home, Sky Dai­ly Hogan paint­ed a pic­ture of a man fight­ing against time and declin­ing health. “I was­n’t ready for this… and my heart is in pieces,” she wrote, reveal­ing that her hus­band had been “deal­ing with some health issues” but she “tru­ly believed we would over­come them”.

The 46-year-old yoga instruc­tor, who mar­ried Hogan in Sep­tem­ber 2023, described his pass­ing as “sud­den and impos­si­ble to process,” despite ongo­ing health con­cerns that had plagued the wrestling leg­end in his final months. “To the world, he was a Ter­ry. The man I loved. My part­ner. My heart,” Dai­ly shared in her emo­tion­al trib­ute.

Dai­ly’s state­ment con­tra­dict­ed ear­li­er denials she had made about Hogan’s health, hav­ing pre­vi­ous­ly dis­missed rumors that he was in a coma just weeks before his death. She had explained that Hogan was recov­er­ing from sig­nif­i­cant neck surgery involv­ing “Ant Cerv Disc” and fusion, describ­ing the chal­leng­ing heal­ing process that affect­ed not just his spine but also his vocal cords and abil­i­ty to eat and breathe.

The Devastating Divorce That Changed Everything

Hogan’s finan­cial strug­gles began with his cat­a­stroph­ic 2009 divorce from first wife Lin­da Hogan, which ranks among the most expen­sive ath­lete divorces in his­to­ry. After 24 years of mar­riage, Lin­da filed for divorce in Novem­ber 2007, cit­ing her hus­band’s alleged affair with their daugh­ter Brooke’s close friend, Chris­tiane Plante.

The divorce set­tle­ment dev­as­tat­ed Hogan’s finances, cost­ing him approx­i­mate­ly 70% of his wealth. Lin­da walked away with $7.44 mil­lion of their $10.41 mil­lion in liq­uid assets, leav­ing Hogan with just $2.97 mil­lion. Addi­tion­al­ly, she received 40% own­er­ship in his busi­ness enti­ties and a $3 mil­lion prop­er­ty set­tle­ment.

“My kids to this day are still reel­ing, and they can’t get their feet back on plan­et Earth. I can’t get my life back on track either… I don’t know where I fit in in this world any­more,” Lin­da stat­ed on Inside Edi­tion, describ­ing the long-last­ing impact of their messy divorce.

The finan­cial dev­as­ta­tion was so severe that Hogan admit­ted in a 2011 radio inter­view that the divorce near­ly left him bank­rupt. He was also ordered to pay over $180,000 in legal fees after accu­sa­tions of delay­ing the divorce pro­ceed­ings.

The Gawker Victory That Restored His Fortune

Hogan’s finan­cial recov­ery came through his land­mark 2016 law­suit against Gawk­er Media over the unau­tho­rized pub­li­ca­tion of his sex tape. The jury ini­tial­ly award­ed him $140 mil­lion in dam­ages, com­pris­ing $115 mil­lion in com­pen­sato­ry dam­ages and $25 mil­lion in puni­tive dam­ages.

While the set­tle­ment was ulti­mate­ly reduced to $31 mil­lion after legal fees and tax­es, the vic­to­ry proved trans­for­ma­tive for both Hogan’s finances and media law. The case, secret­ly bankrolled by Sil­i­con Val­ley bil­lion­aire Peter Thiel, led to Gawk­er’s bank­rupt­cy and clo­sure.

“I was relieved that peo­ple actu­al­ly final­ly believe me,” Hogan told Peo­ple mag­a­zine about the ver­dict. “So many peo­ple thought I was mak­ing a sex tape to sell as enter­tain­ment”. The Gawk­er set­tle­ment became a cru­cial com­po­nent of his $25 mil­lion net worth at the time of his death.

Business Ventures and Modern Revenue Streams

Despite his finan­cial set­backs, Hogan remained entre­pre­neuri­al­ly active through­out his lat­er years. His most sig­nif­i­cant recent ven­ture was Real Amer­i­can Beer, launched in June 2024 as a light lager tar­get­ing main­stream Amer­i­can con­sumers. The brand secured dis­tri­b­u­tion across 20 states and part­nered with major retail­ers includ­ing Wal­mart, Sam’s Club, and Albert­sons.

In Jan­u­ary 2025, just months before his death, WWE announced a mul­ti-year part­ner­ship with Real Amer­i­can Beer, mak­ing it an offi­cial WWE part­ner with ring mat cor­ner brand­ing dur­ing Mon­day Night Raw episodes on Net­flix. WWE also became a minor­i­ty own­er in the rapid­ly expand­ing com­pa­ny.

How­ev­er, the beer brand became embroiled in legal con­tro­ver­sy, with a $10 mil­lion law­suit filed by Car­ma Hold­Co Inc. alleg­ing that for­mer exec­u­tives stole trade secrets and intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty to launch the brand. The lit­i­ga­tion raised ques­tions about own­er­ship rights and cor­po­rate gov­er­nance that may affect the brand’s future fol­low­ing Hogan’s death.

Hogan also oper­at­ed oth­er busi­ness ven­tures, includ­ing Hogan’s Beach Shop (opened in 2012) and Hogan’s Hang­out, both pop­u­lar tourist des­ti­na­tions in Flori­da. His Real Amer­i­can Beer brand had even made a bid to acquire bank­rupt restau­rant chain Hoot­ers, though the sta­tus of this acqui­si­tion became uncer­tain fol­low­ing his death.

The $25 Million Legacy

At the time of his death, Hulk Hogan’s net worth stood at approx­i­mate­ly $25 mil­lion accord­ing to Celebri­ty Net Worth. This fig­ure reflect­ed his recov­ery from the dev­as­tat­ing divorce set­tle­ment through var­i­ous income streams includ­ing WWE leg­ends con­tracts worth about $2.5 mil­lion annu­al­ly, busi­ness ven­tures, endorse­ments, and the Gawk­er set­tle­ment.

Hogan’s wealth was diver­si­fied across mul­ti­ple assets, includ­ing an impres­sive car col­lec­tion fea­tur­ing Amer­i­can mus­cle cars like a 1969 Ply­mouth Road Run­ner, 1968 Dodge Charg­er RT, and Euro­pean lux­u­ry vehi­cles includ­ing a Rolls-Royce Phan­tom and Fer­rari 360 Spy­der. His real estate hold­ings includ­ed a $3 mil­lion Clear­wa­ter man­sion pur­chased in 2014 and an adja­cent prop­er­ty acquired for $1.6 mil­lion in 2016.

The wrestling leg­end’s finan­cial port­fo­lio also includ­ed ongo­ing roy­al­ties from his WWE appear­ances, mer­chan­dise sales, and licens­ing deals relat­ed to his icon­ic “Hulk Hogan” brand. His real­i­ty show “Hogan Knows Best,” which aired from 2005–2007, con­tin­ued gen­er­at­ing resid­ual income.

Sky Daily’s Role in Hogan’s Final Chapter

Sky Dai­ly, Hogan’s third wife, emerged as a sta­bi­liz­ing force in his lat­er years fol­low­ing two pre­vi­ous failed mar­riages. The cou­ple met in 2022 and mar­ried in an inti­mate cer­e­mo­ny in Sep­tem­ber 2023, with Hogan propos­ing at actor Corin Nemec’s wed­ding recep­tion.

Dai­ly, who has three chil­dren from a pre­vi­ous rela­tion­ship, worked as a yoga instruc­tor and accoun­tant before her mar­riage to Hogan. At 46, she was 25 years younger than the wrestling leg­end but became his clos­est com­pan­ion dur­ing his health strug­gles.

Her emo­tion­al Insta­gram trib­ute revealed the depth of their rela­tion­ship and Hogan’s ded­i­ca­tion to his fans despite phys­i­cal dis­com­fort. “Hulk loved his fans so much and despite his grow­ing phys­i­cal dis­com­fort, he did every­thing he could to show up, sign auto­graphs, take pho­tos, and con­nect with the peo­ple who sup­port­ed him through it all. You meant every­thing to him,” she wrote.

Financial Impact of Hogan’s Death

Hogan’s death cre­ates imme­di­ate ques­tions about the future of his busi­ness empire, par­tic­u­lar­ly Real Amer­i­can Beer, which had been gain­ing momen­tum with WWE’s back­ing. The brand’s legal trou­bles and Hoot­ers acqui­si­tion bid add com­plex­i­ty to estate set­tle­ment pro­ceed­ings.

His death also poten­tial­ly affects ongo­ing rev­enue streams from WWE part­ner­ships, mer­chan­dise licens­ing, and busi­ness oper­a­tions that relied heav­i­ly on his per­son­al involve­ment and star pow­er. The wrestling indus­try has already acknowl­edged the sig­nif­i­cant finan­cial void his pass­ing cre­ates for WWE and the broad­er enter­tain­ment indus­try.

WWE’s state­ment empha­sized Hogan’s role in the com­pa­ny’s glob­al suc­cess, not­ing that he “helped WWE achieve glob­al recog­ni­tion in the 1980s”. This recog­ni­tion sug­gests con­tin­ued val­ue in his brand and intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty rights, which will like­ly ben­e­fit his sur­viv­ing fam­i­ly mem­bers.

Estate and Inheritance Considerations

With an esti­mat­ed $25 mil­lion estate, Hogan’s finan­cial lega­cy will be dis­trib­uted among his sur­viv­ing fam­i­ly mem­bers, includ­ing wife Sky Dai­ly and chil­dren Brooke and Nick Hogan from his first mar­riage. The estate includes diverse assets from real estate and lux­u­ry vehi­cles to busi­ness inter­ests and intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty rights.

His pre­vi­ous divorce set­tle­ment with Lin­da Hogan, while dev­as­tat­ing at the time, may have sim­pli­fied estate plan­ning by clear­ly delin­eat­ing asset own­er­ship and elim­i­nat­ing poten­tial claims from his first wife. Lin­da’s 2025 social media posts sug­gest­ing she received noth­ing in the divorce con­tra­dict­ed pub­licly avail­able set­tle­ment doc­u­ments show­ing her sub­stan­tial finan­cial gains.

The Real Amer­i­can Beer con­tro­ver­sy and relat­ed law­suits may com­pli­cate estate pro­ceed­ings, par­tic­u­lar­ly regard­ing intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty rights and busi­ness own­er­ship struc­tures. Hogan’s role as the brand’s pub­lic face and co-founder cre­ates val­u­a­tion chal­lenges for estate execu­tors.

Legacy of Financial Resilience

Hulk Hogan’s finan­cial sto­ry rep­re­sents both cau­tion­ary tale and redemp­tion nar­ra­tive. His abil­i­ty to rebuild from near-bank­rupt­cy fol­low­ing his divorce demon­strates remark­able resilience and busi­ness acu­men. The Gawk­er vic­to­ry not only restored his finances but estab­lished impor­tant legal prece­dents for celebri­ty pri­va­cy rights.

His entre­pre­neur­ial ven­tures, from restau­rants to beer brands, showed con­tin­ued ambi­tion well into his sev­en­ties. Even fac­ing health chal­lenges, Hogan main­tained active involve­ment in busi­ness oper­a­tions and brand devel­op­ment, as evi­denced by the Jan­u­ary 2025 WWE part­ner­ship announce­ment.

Sky Dai­ly’s trib­ute empha­sized Hogan’s unwa­ver­ing com­mit­ment to fans and busi­ness oblig­a­tions despite phys­i­cal dis­com­fort, paint­ing a pic­ture of a man who remained pro­fes­sion­al­ly ded­i­cat­ed until his final days. This ded­i­ca­tion like­ly con­tributed to main­tain­ing rev­enue streams that sup­port­ed his $25 mil­lion net worth.

The wrestling leg­end’s death at 71 clos­es a com­plex finan­cial chap­ter marked by spec­tac­u­lar highs, dev­as­tat­ing lows, and ulti­mate recov­ery. His sto­ry serves as a tes­ta­ment to the volatile nature of celebri­ty wealth and the impor­tance of finan­cial resilience in enter­tain­ment careers span­ning mul­ti­ple decades.

From the dev­as­tat­ing divorce that cost him 70% of his wealth to the legal vic­to­ry that restored his for­tune, from failed busi­ness ven­tures to suc­cess­ful brand part­ner­ships, Hulk Hogan’s finan­cial jour­ney mir­rors the dra­mat­ic nar­ra­tives that made him famous in the wrestling ring. His final net worth of $25 mil­lion, while sub­stan­tial, rep­re­sents only a frac­tion of the wealth he gen­er­at­ed and lost through­out his tumul­tuous career.

As Sky Dai­ly and his fam­i­ly nav­i­gate this new real­i­ty with­out their beloved Ter­ry, they inher­it not just his finan­cial assets but the endur­ing val­ue of one of Amer­i­ca’s most rec­og­niz­able enter­tain­ment brands. The Hulk Hogan lega­cy, built on charis­ma, con­tro­ver­sy, and remark­able come­back abil­i­ty, will like­ly con­tin­ue gen­er­at­ing val­ue long after the man behind the mus­tache has tak­en his final bow.