Natalya On How The Rock Helped Inspire Ending To Her Memoir, Being Able To Forgive Her Dad

Natalya recently discussed how the Rock helped to inspire the ending to her new memoir and how the book helped her forgive her father. The WWE star appeared on SiriusXM’s The Nikki and Brie Show to discuss The Last Hart Beating: From the Dungeon to WWE. During the conversation, she talked about how she was able to reconcile some of the difficult moments of her childhood.

Natalya also discussed the similarities between herself and The Rock and how he helped her with the book. You can see some highlights that the show sent along below:

On How The Memoir Helped Her Forgive Her Dad:

“It was tough talking about stuff with my dad. Because I needed to be able to explain the stuff that was going on with my dad and his health in order for people to understand that he wasn’t trying to be a bad parent. I think he was doing the best that he could. And so in writing that, I actually forgave my dad. In writing this book, for a lot of the hard things that we went through as kids, I really forgave my dad. I got to the end of it and I just had so much freedom of like, he did the best that he could and now that we understand that he was struggling with so much, it gave me like this totally different understanding of him.

“That’s why I wanted to dedicate the whole book to him. Because I was like, this is my big story for me and my dad and he wasn’t trying to be a bad parent. But sometimes, you know, there’s no playbook on how to be a great parent. Sometimes parents are just doing the best that they can.

On The Rock Helping Her With the Book:

“So, I wanted Bret to be a part of my book because Bret is just a master storyteller. But I was also like — the thing with Dwayne is that part of asking him to be a part of the book was that it was part of me standing on my own two feet. And so of course, I wanted to include Bret. But I also wanted to show that this was also like, ‘Okay, I’m not gonna just lean on family.’ Because Bret is one of the greatest storytellers ever, but I was like, ‘I want to ask Dwayne if he would help me with this project.’ Because Dwayne’s dad was a wrestler. Dwayne’s grandmother, just like my grandfather, they were wrestling promoters. Dwayne is the first third generation male superstar in WWE, and I’m the first female third generation superstar in WWE. So I was like, we have all these similarities, but our careers were very different. But I was like, I would love to, I know he’s so supportive of women’s wrestling. And he’s somebody that I feel like we have so much in common. Because he also, he’s extremely successful now, but he also went through a lot.”

“So I was like, ‘I would love to have his help.’ And this is gonna sound crazy guys, but he jumped at the chance to help me. He was like, ‘Absolutely.’ It was literally me getting up my courage. I was just getting up my courage to ask him at the Netflix premiere. I was like, ‘I really want to ask him here. I’ve got to make this my mission today,’ and I walked right up to him. Of course, he swarmed with everyone. Everybody and their brother was trying to talk to him. He sees me, gives me a huge hug, stops and talks to me as if I’m the only person in the room and then agrees to do the foreword, and I was like, I couldn’t even believe it. I was just like, I mean, I can believe it now, and then he researched it.”

On How He Helped Inspire the Ending:

“So, he reached out to me and asked me a bunch of questions. And he’s like, ‘I want to write this from my heart. I want to make it great, I really want to be involved in it.’ I know now we realize, ‘Oh shit, he’s doing this massive movie.’ You know, he’s one of the busiest guys on the planet. But the busiest people, they always are the ones that make the time and he made the time. He helped me with actually the ending of the book. Because when we were talking about the foreword, he said to me, ‘I really want to know what legacy means to you. What does legacy mean to you? I need you to think about it.’ He’s like, ‘Take a couple days, think about what legacy means to you.’ Because I was struggling with the finish of the book, and then I was like, when I was trying to answer Dwayne’s question, and I was like, ‘Oh my god, I have to finish the book. This is the finish. This is the finish of the book, what legacy means.’ It’s very powerful, but he was a huge proponent for what legacy means to me.”