THE HOGANS TORN APART

. But it’s hard to smile when your family is falling apart. Sitting down with Life & Style for an interview, Brooke spoke candidly about her family’s ordeal and how she’s coping. “I’m up and down,” she admits. “It’s hard not seeing Nick.” She visits him three times a week, but with her parents not speaking, arrangements can be tricky — and painful. “Sometimes,” she says, “we just can’t handle being in the same space.”

Before things took a tragic turn, Brooke and her family seemed to live an idyllic life. But by the end of their VH1 reality show’s fourth season, Hogan Knows Best, the family was in shambles. Nick was awaiting trial for causing the crash, and Linda and Hulk had separated. “Everything was going wrong,” Hulk told Life & Style in a June 28 interview. “My marriage was breaking up, Nick was in trouble and I was way off course.”

Brooke says she doesn’t blame the show for their downfall. “How can filming a TV show ruin your life?” she asks. “We weren’t forced to fight with each other. The problems were within — it was all there. The cameras forced it to the surface because we had been suppressing it for so long, but everything would have happened sooner or later.”

Her dad agrees, revealing that his marriage to Linda hadn’t been in good shape for a long time. Now, he says, he’s had enough. “I spent almost 10 years trying to be there for my wife,” he tells Life & Style. “She has an addictive personality, and it dragged me down. But things are different now. I’m letting go.”

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