Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson’s Dad Rocky Johnson Had 5 Secret Kids Who Just Discovered Himself

Throughout his rise to stardom, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson has called his relationship with Wayde “Rocky” Bowles “incredibly complicated” even though his father was a regular presence from childhood. Lisa Purves said Sports Illustrated what was 18 when she first contacted her father, and he hung up. Rocky hung up on her several years after she tried again. She asked other wrestlers over the years to speak to her on her behalf, but nothing happened.

“I was really embarrassed that my dad didn’t want me,” Lisa said. In 2017, Lisa, now 53, decided to make a documentary about children whose parents knowingly separated from them but found no willing subject to talk about. A friend then suggested that she make the film about herself.

“I started researching what happens when you abandon a child, how it affects their life,” she said. “And I’m like, that’s exactly me. Self-esteem issues… . All the s- he lists is me.”

Wayde Bowles started wrestling at the age of 20, training in Ontario and across Canada as Rocky Johnson. Rocky toured North America for 15 years, earning dozens of singles and tag titles along the way, culminating in the first black WWE tag team title he won with Tony Atlas.

Una Sparks was Rocky’s first wife whom he married in 1966. Together they had two children, Wanda (born December 1962) and Curtis (born May 1965). After the demands of professional wrestling strained the marriage, Sparks asked Rocky to stay in Toronto, but decided to live on the road as a wrestler. When the couple divorced in 1978, they had been separated for many years.

Having officially changed his name, Rocky Johnson remarried Ata Maivia that year. Rocky and Maivia already had one child, born May 2, 1972, Dwayne Douglas Johnson, who would one day become famous as The Rock.

Lisa Purves was born on October 26, 1968 in Vancouver. According to his mother, Vera, she met Rocky through a mutual friend, and they moved in together shortly after their first date.

Lisa says Rocky went to a wrestling show when Vera was four months pregnant. He told Vera he would be back, adding “PS: I still love you” at the bottom. The last time he called her was the day before his daughter was born and he signed the letter “The Rock”. Soon after, she found out that Rocky was already married and had kids.

“She always thought he would come back,” Lisa said. “When I was old enough to understand, she started telling me bits and pieces.”

Paula Parsons’ mother, 58, Thelma, met Rocky in Toronto when she was 19; they dated for two years. Thelma gave birth to Paula in May 1964, a year and a half after Una Sparks gave birth to Wanda. That year, Thelma dropped Paula off at her parents, who raised her.

Eventually, Paula learned who her father was from her mother. Rocky called her twice: once when she was relatively young and once when she was 16. “Promises after promises,” she said. “I am will come to see you. I will do that; I will do that. You have good hope that he will come. I will finally meet my father. And nothing comes of it.”

“You’re crying,” she said. “So you say, What did I do that he wants nothing to do with [me]In 1967, Rocky Johnson’s fourth child, Trevor Edwards, was born in Montreal. His mother, Doreen, raised him alone.

People used to tell Trevor he looked like a rising star when Dwayne Johnson first appeared on the wrestling scene around 2000. His mother (who died in 2015) was never upfront about About her dad, but he knew she was an avid wrestling fan, and Rocky wrestled back when he was born in St. Catharines.

After Trevor married, he moved to Toronto, near the home of eight-year-old Rocky’s younger brother, Jay, who has long since adopted the wrestling name Ricky Johnson. Rocky and Ricky once teamed up in Hawai’i’s NWA Polynesian Pacific promotion, but they weren’t particularly close.

In June 2017, Trevor, now 55, discovered Ricky’s residence via Facebook. He rang the apartment and left a message explaining their connection. Ricky called back, inviting Trevor Trevor to visit, and noticed Trevor’s mannerisms and gait.

They performed a DNA test the next day, which ultimately matched the nephew and uncle. Rocky’s son, Adrian Bowles, has talked the most about growing up without a father. “For a long time I was weighed down by the weight of my own sadness and got angry,” he says. “It was the fuel. I thought about my dad every day of my life. Standing in a mirror, looking me in the eye, talking to myself about why [he left].”

Adrian was born to Carolyn Bowles on April 24, 1970 in Truro, Nova Scotia, and she raised him alone. Growing up near the poverty line, he had a tough upbringing.

Adrian said he learned his father’s identity when he was around 10 years old. “My mother, she can’t even tell the story, she starts crying.” Rocky first and last called Adrian when he was 40 in 2010.

“It was a good conversation,” Adrian said. “A little gratifying, I suppose, but a little late. It kind of stirred things up inside.”

Aaron Fowler was born on June 17, 1970 in Amherst, Nova Scotia. Fowler recalled his mother telling him about his real father when he was around 15, but that was the last time she told him about him.

In his early thirties, when he first shaved his head, his co-workers said, “Oh, you look like The Rock!” After talking to his wife about taking a DNA test in 2020, she encouraged him to do so. Ancestry.com released the results two months after Rocky died of a heart attack at age 75. In addition to Adrian Bowles, Aaron reunited with Lisa Purves online as part of a half-sibling match.

As The Rock’s half-siblings explained to Sports Illustrated, this is not the story of their famous wrestling half-brother. They know Dwayne had nothing to do with their injury. “Dwayne owes us nothing,” Lisa said. “We just want to be recognized,” Paula said. “We sat on the back burner forever. [Rocky] was our father as well as Dwayne’s.”

Over the weekend of a family reunion in Toronto in 2018, Lisa arranged for her newly discovered loved ones to share a six-bedroom Airbnb. A film crew was on hand to capture the moment. Looking back on the event, Paula called it “the greatest moment of my life.” Lisa described it as “a healing weekend”.

During this meeting, Lisa arranged for further DNA testing, and the results confirmed that they were all Rocky’s children. However, Lisa thinks their father had even more children. “I’m still looking,” she said.

Just call me Lisa is the working title of his film, which is still in production. Although she has suffered personal attacks about the project, Lisa wants others to know: “I am [talking about this] now because I’ve been silent all my life about what hurts me the most. It’s time to finally make my voice heard, so that I can free myself from my painful past.”

Lisa expressed hope that others could heal by hearing her story and the stories of her siblings. “There are millions of other kids like me,” she says, “and I want [tell] people: Face your shame. If anyone heals after watching this documentary, then publicizing my pain is worth it.”