The Rock Responds to ‘Lateness’ Claims

Dwayne Johnson’s time is in demand. The pro-wrestler-turned-movie-star went back to pro wrestling, and is now making Moana 2, but after a recent report accused “The People’s Champion” of being constantly late, The Rock has slammed his critics with a response.

Previously, M&F reported that DJ had been jeered at a WWE fan event in the run up to WrestleMania XL in Philadelphia this past April because he’d shown up on stage two hours late. Providing no real clue as to what had caused the delay, he chose to joke that he’d been watching the Eagle’s player Jalen Hurts “lose the playoffs again.” The Rock soon redeemed himself however, firstly by making a late-night appearance at the WWE Hall of Fame, where he was presented by the late Muhammed Ali’s wife with an official “People’s Championship” belt, all before going on to give a blistering performance in his exciting WrestleMania comeback.

So, all is good once more in the world of The Rock? Well, not quite. Last week, Umberto Gonzalez wrote a story for thewrap.com in which it was reported that “Dwayne Johnson’s tardiness” led to a “$250 million runaway production” during the making of Red One.  The story asserts that far from being “the hardest worker in the room,” as Johnson likes to suggest, he instead exhibited “chronic” lateness and a “lack of professionalism” on set, causing the film, also co-starring Chris Evans and JK Simmons to require a bigger budget.

One of the more eye-catching claims made is that Johnson has also previously peed into water bottles to save time, and this had allegedly upset some crew members. Disappointingly, the story only quoted “insiders” to back up all the gossip.

Camp Rock Responds

A statement provided to The Wrap in response to the story by filmmakers Amazon MGM refuted that there were any on-set issues or delays caused by Johnson’s lateness. Going further, however, The Wrap story reported that The Rock was three hours late to his entrance rehearsals ahead of his main event match at WrestleMania XL. This is another claim that has been refuted. Chris Legentil, who is WWE’s Executive Vice President for Talent Relations and Head of Communications said; “Dwayne was not only on time for WrestleMania, he was hours early to help with the rehearsal — and a pleasure to work with throughout the entire run.

Now The Rock has responded to the claims that he was late to WrestleMania via his Instagram account, posting a picture that appears to show him taking an active part in WrestleMania rehearsals.

Apparently showing that The Rock was at Philadelphia’s Lincoln Financial Field way ahead of the fans, The Rock posted “Walk thru (fire emoji). Love and appreciate all the support – Final Boss.”

Natalya Neidhart, who is a WWE legend in her own right was one of the first people to lend that support, typing; “The best and a wonderful person.”

Whether or not The Rock is taking on too much will no doubt reveal itself in time, but given the commitments that he is juggling, and his innate ability to “electrify” his millions and millions of fans, it would be premature to the count “The Final Boss” out just yet.