The reality star opened up about the topic during the season 7 premiere of ‘Rock the Block’ on Monday, April 13
Brooke Hogan is getting candid about why her appearance on Rock the Block holds an extra special meaning for her.
During the season 7 premiere of the HGTV renovation show, which aired Monday, April 13, the reality star opens up about all the hard work she’s put into her Nashville-based design business over the last eight years, and reflects on what her late dad Hulk Hogan would think of her success.
Brooke touches upon the topic with her partner on the show, HGTV’s Scott McGillivray, while the pair renovates different spaces in a Las Vegas home as part of the competition.
“Half of me is like, ‘I can’t believe I’m here.’ I can’t believe that design is what I ended up doing. I wonder if my dad would be proud and be like, ‘This is cool,’ ” Brooke tells McGillivray. “’Cause I never wanted to take daddy’s money. So when I was building my business, I was really building it with no capital, no help from anybody else.”
The scene cuts to a confessional-style clip, during which Brooke begins to get emotional, discussing how her dad would react to her work on the HGTV show.
“I got called to do Rock the Block long before my dad passed. But obviously, I didn’t tell him that I had it because we weren’t talking,” she says, beginning to tear up. “But I told my husband, I was like, ‘I wonder, I wonder if my dad would be proud knowing that I’m doing this.’ You know, ‘I wonder if…’ ”
“He was the one that told me to get my real estate license,” she adds of her dad, who died at the age of 71 of acute myocardial infarction in July 2025. Brooke has previously been candid about her estrangement from the late wrestler, as well as why she chose not to attend his funeral.
Also during the episode, Brooke pulls back the curtain on some of the hardships she faced while trying to get her design business up and running. She notes that some of what she experienced might come as a surprise to fans who have watched her family’s reality show, Hogan Knows Best, and later her own show, Brooke Knows Best.
“What I think a lot of people don’t know is that I’ve never been somebody that worked off my dad’s money. Like, my parents got me to a certain point,” she explains, adding that after she got her solo show she was “on my own.”
She continues, “The second TV stopped, I was like, ‘I don’t know what I’m doing with my life,’ and then moved a million times because I didn’t know where I belonged. I finally landed in Nashville and started this design business decorating short-term rentals. And it was really a struggle in the beginning.”
She explains how her business struggled at first because she was “spending more than I was making.” Since she didn’t have much in her savings, she says she even “waited tables in Nashville at one point” to make ends meet. Dedicated to her business, she recalls living “on coffee and protein bars” to get through her 23-hour work days at the time.
“And then I started loving it, and it became something I was really good at and really proud of. And we became one of the top design firms in Nashville,” she adds of her company, BB Designs By Brooke.
Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.
Cutting back to the scene with McGillivray, he tells her, “You’ve got a talent, and I’m sure he would be super proud of you,” referring to Hulk.
“I hope he is proud. Thank you,” Brooke says while sniffling, before the pair shares a sweet hug. The two later end up winning the main suite challenge in the first episode, prompting Brooke to express her happiness over her hard work paying off.
“I love what I do, and it felt like all the work and the things I’ve been doing in the shadows, it kind of just made me feel a little bit like I have something still left,” she adds.
This season of Rock the Block is shaking up its usual nail-biting, competition format by pairing HGTV stars with celebrities who are equally passionate about design. In true Rock the Block fashion, each team is tasked with giving identical homes a complete makeover in just six weeks, while also adding the most value that they can to each build.
Rock the Block airs Mondays at 8 p.m. ET on HGTV.