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Dwayne Johnson announced the death of his French Bulldog Hobbs in an emotional Instagram post on February 25, 2025. Hobbs had been part of Johnson’s family since 2015, when Johnson and his partner Lauren Hashian brought him home as a puppy alongside his brother, Brutus.
“RIP Hobbs,” Johnson wrote. “I’ve been numb over this loss, but we’re so grateful for every ounce of pure love he gave our entire family and we’re so grateful he didn’t suffer long as he quietly and bravely left in the night.” He went on to write, “Lately, there’s been a lot that’s too big to talk about. Lonesome, lonely, heard it’s all the same,” before expressing hope that Hobbs might “come back and visit every once in a while so we can get in trouble and laugh again.” The post included photos and videos from over the years, including footage of Johnson resting his head gently on Hobbs’s back and playfully nudging him with his foot.
Hobbs’s story with the family had already carried real weight before this loss. His brother Brutus died as a puppy back in 2015 after eating a toxic mushroom in the backyard, a loss Johnson also wrote about publicly at the time, describing holding Brutus’s paw as he passed. Hobbs went on to become something of a minor celebrity in his own right, Johnson cast him in a cameo in the 2019 film “Hobbs & Shaw,” a spin off named after Johnson’s own “Fast & Furious” character that the dog shared a name with, joking at the time that it was “nepotism shmepotism.”
Johnson’s tribute post drew more than 2 million likes within hours, along with a wave of supportive comments from fans and fellow celebrities, including magician Oz Pearlman, who wrote, “RIP Hobbs, what a good boy.”
My thoughts: What stands out in Johnson’s post isn’t the scale of the reaction, it’s how plainly he described the numbness that comes right after a loss like this, before the grief has fully organized itself into words. Losing Hobbs also wasn’t Johnson’s first heartbreak with this particular pair of dogs, he’d already gone through losing Brutus as a puppy a decade earlier, which probably made this loss land even heavier. It’s a good reminder that public figures grieving a pet online aren’t performing anything, the scale of the audience is different, but the loss itself is exactly as ordinary and as devastating as it is for anyone else.
Source: TODAY / TMZ / PEOPLE
