“My parents taught me a lot about what I didn’t want to be as a parent.”
In lieu of flowers send … nothing.
UFC President Dana White recently lost both of his parents. While that might be a traumatic experience for most people, it was just another day at the office for the newly-appointed CEO of the world’s preeminent combat sports promotion.
“My parents both died recently,” White told Piers Morgan. “I’m good with it. I focus a lot on my kids and my relationship with them, and I’ve sort of put my relationship with my parents behind me. I didn’t wish ill will on either one of my parents, but no I didn’t [feel sad]. When they passed away, I had almost no feelings about it, to be honest.”
White, 54, was the child of a single mom with a dad “who was never around,” which allowed a “fat” neighbor to “terrorize” his family. White’s mom later went on record in 2011 — in advance of her tell-all book — to discredit her son by revealing a laundry list of bad behaviors, including infidelity and misogyny.
That interview resurfaced in the wake of White’s slap attack earlier this year in Cabo.
“I don’t like talking about it, but I would say yes, absolutely my relationship with my parents definitely made me who I am today in many different ways,” White continued. “Not just in business, but as a father too, so I wouldn’t change my upbringing, not one thing about it. I can’t deny the fact that the way I am built — the drive, and all the things that I have, definitely come from the relationship that I had with my parents. There’s no doubt, but I have no remorse. I don’t feel bad about the way I grew up.”
White would eventually move on to become both Mom and Pop in the years that followed.