Actor and former WWE champion and pro-wrestler Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s recent string of bad luck and bad news meant that surely he was due for some good news soon–and he recently got it as the headline-grabbing $3 billion lawsuit against him was dismissed by a district court judge.
Actor and former pro-wrestler Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson has had a rough go of it in recent months as many of his projects in film and in the sports entertainment sector have had poor outcomes. Johnson played the title character in the latest DC Comics flick for Warner Bros., Black Adam (2022), but box office returns fell very short of the studio’s projections and expectations. Though the film garnered more than $393 million worldwide, the budget for the film surpassed $260 million–and that doesn’t include associated marketing costs.
Then in early June, Forbes reported that the XFL, the professional American football minor league comprised of eight teams located across the United States which is co-owned by Dwayne Johnson, his ex-wife Dani Garcia, and Gerry Cardinale, lost nearly $60 million in his first season (2023). Analysts pointed out that “it’s hard to sell football when it’s not football season.”
Adding insult to injury, NBC canceled Johnson’s television sitcom after just three seasons. Young Rock aired from February 16, 2021, to February 24, 2023. In May, when the show wasn’t listed on NBC’s fall line-up, questions began to arise about the future of the comedy series, which was based on the life of Dwayne Johnson from his days as a pro-wrestler to his current role as a Hollywood actor.
As if these pieces of bad news weren’t enough, the actor was named in a massive $3 billion lawsuit filed by former wrestler Rhaka Khan, who claimed Johnson was the mastermind behind a wild conspiracy that saw the female wrestler and her children kidnapped and reported missing. In light of the filing, rumors began to swirl about Disney cutting ties with the actor as the company did with actor Johnny Depp in the Pirates of the Caribbean film franchise.
United States District Court Judge Laura Taylor Swain has reportedly dismissed the suit filed by Trenesha “Rhaka Khan” Biggers, which named Dwayne Johnson and a veritable laundry list of other individuals and entities as co-conspirators in an alleged kidnapping plot. The list of defendants in the suit was–to put it gently–unbelievable and included celebrities like Dwayne Johnson, as well as municipalities, local and federal law enforcement agencies, and chain retail stores like Home Depot, Starbucks, and Victoria’s Secret.
(Yeah, we never were quite clear on Victoria’s Secret’s role in the alleged kidnappings.)
Dwayne Johnson (L)/Trenesha Biggers (R)
The suit reportedly stemmed from Biggers’s arrest in 2019 on allegations she interfered with child custody orders that pertained to her children and ex-husband. The former TNA wrestler’s complaint alleged that a group of nearly 1,000 defendants conspired to kidnap her children when they were taken from her following her arrest.
Here’s hoping news of the dismissal of the case by the district court judge is just the beginning of an upward swing of success for the Jumanji (2021) and Jungle Cruise (2021) actor.
