Wrestling icon Hulk Hogan was taking enough fentanyl to kill him to help cope with pain towards the end of his career, it has emerged.

The celebrity sporting legend became reliant on the prescription medication during his time with TNA (Total Nonstop Wrestling) because it had quickly become apparent he wasn’t proper physical shape to compete in the ring at the highest level, according to claims in a new Netflix series.

Hogan – who died in July 2025 aged 71 after a heart attack – had signed up to fight with the organisation aged 58 when he “hit rock-bottom”.

He had given “everything” to first wife Linda Hogan when they divorced in 2009 and he needed the cash, Hulk Hogan: Real American reveals. But he soon turned to the opioid to get by.

“I was taking 80-milligram fentanyls, two in the morning, stuffing them under my gums here … I had two 300-milligram patches of fentanyl on my legs and they gave me six 1500-milligram fentanyl lollipops to eat,” Hogan reveals in what became the final interview before his death.

“I went to the pharmacy. [The pharmacist] goes, ‘You should be dead. We have never seen a human being take this much fentanyl’.”

Hogan said the pain was so bad he had to sleep in a chair.

“If I just twitched my finger like that, my whole back would spasm and torque,” he said.

Hulk Hogan’s last interview has emerged, in which he admits to extensive drug use. Photo: AAP

Elsewhere in the series, Hogan admitted contemplating taking his own life amid the public backlash after his divorce.

“I went home, I started drinking and started eating pills, and I just went down this rabbit hole for a couple of days,” he said.

“Next thing I know, I’m sitting in front of my bathroom with a gun in my mouth and not knowing what I was doing, you know?”

Born Terry Gene Bollea, Hogan was a huge star of the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s who helped pioneer the niche sport of wrestling and turn it into a mainstream global spectacle.

One of the original superstar performers and a headline act, he wore a signature handlebar moustache and bandana, and was known for shredding his shirt off his rippled chest.

The cultural icon was a world champion 12 times and was twice inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame.

Hogan also made movies and starred in his own reality TV show.

He was married three times, most recently in 2023 to Sky Daily.

He suffered a cardiac arrest at his Florida home in July last year. Video from outside the house at the time showed medics conducting chest compressions as they tried desperately to save his life as he was transported to an ambulance.

He was pronounced dead in hospital.

Local police said there were “no signs of foul play or suspicious activity”.

-with AAP