Content creator, podcaster, and high-profile social media boxer Logan Paul has had his fair share of controversies over the years. He recently revealed that Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson – his idol who he had made multiple videos with – asked him to remove all content of them together, saying that he didn’t want anything to do with him anymore.
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The reasoning for this cut-off dates back to when Logan Paul was primarily a YouTuber. He released a video where he and his friends are exploring the Aokigahara forest in Japan, which is infamously known as the “suicide forest” as a reference to the dozens of people that take their own lives there every year.
In the video, Paul and his friends come across a dead man and were shocked, although they proceeded to make jokes about the situation. As a result of the controversial actions, Paul lost business partnerships, entered legal issues, and his account was temporarily demonetized on YouTube.
While Logan Paul apologized and has gone on to find success and further notoriety, he recently spoke to fellow YouTuber True Geordie in a sit-down interview about how the forest incident resulted in The Rock cutting ties with him.
The 50-year-old WWE and blockbuster powerhouse had made a few Vines and skits with Paul, who was “scared to meet him” as a huge fan. However, the viral star said The Rock was “awesome” and gave him a fair shot in good faith. What happened afterwards, as Paul recounted, found him “in a hole – rightfully so – that [he] had never been in before.”
“[I was] extremely low mentally,” explained Paul, “and I got a call from my publicist who also repped Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson and she’s like, ‘Hey Dwayne’s asked that you remove every picture and video that you’ve done with him and maybe in the future the relationship can be reconciled but for now he basically wants nothing to do with you,’ which I also understood. I get it. You know, I made a grotesque error and he has had things happen in his life where like a lot of people that incident affected him in a personal way.”
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“But I just wish I’d gotten like a call or a text or something because I thought we had a healthy relationship, an open line of communication. And I was so sad that my hero wanted nothing to do with me. And I was sad because I understood it, I really f****d up.”
Paul elaborated, “I was so disappointed in myself, and so I vowed to get better, I vowed to change, time passed, I start doing well… I just wanted to be able to build a relationship with Dwayne, that didn’t end up happening.”
Despite the rift, the 27-year-old also revealed that The Rock sent him an Instagram DM just a few months ago about a funny video Paul posted, to which he has yet to respond. Paul is still “still stuck on what happened back then.”
You can check out the full interview with True Geordie below. The conversation about The Rock begins at 21:50.