Apparently, after Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson floated the idea of running for president years ago, political parties actually took that quite seriously.
The Black Adam star revealed an interview on the first episode of Trevor Noah’s new podcast, What Now? (h/t Insider), that several political parties flocked to him last year and asked him if he would ever run for President of the United States. He spoke about the experience after Noah brought up a 2021 poll that said 46% of people would support him if he campaigned for the White House.
“That was an interesting poll that happened and I was really moved by that,” Johnson said. “I was really blown away and I was really honored. I’ll share this little bit with you: at the end of the year in 2022, I got a visit from the parties asking me if I was going to run, and if I could run.”
Johnson didn't specify which political bodies or figures reached out to him. Although he had floated the idea of running for president in 2017, he said that he was completely taken by surprise when he was more seriously approached for running for the Oval Office in 2022.
“It was a big deal, and it came out of the blue,” he said. “It was one after the other, and they brought up that poll, and they also brought up their own deep-dive research that would prove that should I ever go down that road. It was all very surreal because that’s never been my goal. My goal has never been to be in politics. As a matter of fact, there’s a lot about politics that I hate.”
Johnson said as much in an interview with CBS Sunday Morning in October 2022, saying that running for president was “off the table” because he’s committed to being a father to his 5- and 7-year-old daughters, Tiana and Jasmine. He said he doesn’t want to make the same mistake he made with his 22-year-old daughter, Simone, during his WWE wrestling career, missing out on birthdays and other things due to being away for long periods of time — or 230 dates a year, in the case of his wrestling career.
The Rock is currently working on the live-action remake of Moana, where he’ll reprise his role of demi-god Maui, and a Christmas action movie for Prime Video called Red One with co-star Chris Evans.
Cristina Alexander is a freelance writer for IGN. To paraphrase Calvin Harris, she wears her love for Sonic the Hedgehog on her sleeve like a big deal. Follow her on Twitter @SonicPrincess15.
