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the Jo Rogan Experience my life got real tough once I got to like once I left home so my parents divorced at 15 like I testified I never wanted to see my mom again and then I I left with my Dad yeah so you know the other the other branch of that story is you got the abuse from at least my earliest memory of was like four and a half 5 years old and then till 15 years old then we leave I go to PA with my dad because my mom basically hated my guts I was a it was like it was such divided family it was the girls and my mom that we lived like the farm life like I grew up a farm boy and uh against like my dad and the fighter right like like I was a puppet and uh you know I just mimicked everything that he said but you know um I chose my dad because I didn't want to lose wrestling or or Jiu-Jitsu or or boxing and everything but then when I got up meing but then when I got up to PA he had already had a girl he was laid up in that it was like that's all that mattered to him and then she worked he doesn't work you know what I mean so he found somebody to pre on to manipulate to do his thing and then it was like I don't need my kid no more after I went to court and like you know I didn't understand the consequences of testifying testifying in court against your mom and being dragged to court out of school and that humiliation um and uh you know I didn't talk to my my mom and my sisters for years and we we don't talk currently we haven't talked since before I got in UFC and we haven't talked since before I broke my arm wow because I knocked my sister's boyfriend out for being a methhead oh Jesus yeah yeah so yeah it is what it is but uh but yeah man I mean once I moved up to PA it got that was the worst like that short span from 15 to like 18 was like man like I was ready to I was out so where were you staying during that time so I stayed in Media PA I lived in uh I lived in it's it's Pennsylvania but it's like 25 minutes outside of uh Philadelphia so it's like the suburbs city um honestly it's like a bougie it's not bougie but it's like a Towny nice town and uh you know everything was new to me I came from a school of 330 kids I got into high school I was in a school of like 1600 kids across four grades but they were all like preppy [ __ ] like kids down in South Jersey where I grew up
they were they were all fighting each other like beating each other up jumping each other after school up here everybody would talk [ __ ] nobody would fight so it was like a weird it was a weird thing for me to adjust I didn't have friends I didn't have phone like until I started getting a job and yeah man it was weird it was really weird I uh I lived in a two-bedroom apartment um and my dad his girl at the time uh which he's married to now um and her two daughters we all lived in a two-bedroom apartment you know what I mean so it was like it was just like a bunch it was it was a terrible living situation and then at the beatings man I swear to God he used to beat me up just to prove that he could beat me you know and show his girl that he was tough and you know like nobody could [ __ ] with him type of deal and it was just like man so it got real dark man and started like stomping me breaking my like broke my teeth um I got two two crowns you know because of him because it breaking my teeth and I would I would curl up like he would punch me like a grown man but I would curl up he would throw uppercuts like that's how intent this guy was on getting me and um the last fight we had it was over a [ __ ] game called Uncharted three and it was we were playing Co-op but because I would get more kills than him this is the kind of [ __ ] he would rage at he so and mind you throughout all these years right he's on SSD the reason being he had a car accident he was an oil truck driver uh I I forget the story of who blew the light but when he was gone through the light he got T-boned or he T-boned somebody bleow out his back had to get surgery apparently it failed whenever he wanted to jump up and whoop your ass though dude wasn't crippled no more so it's crazy you know and he would go box 15 rounds but throughout 2004 all the way until I was 15 years old and and then some this man was on narcotics all the time he was on Viking and perco oxy and uh he he definitely was addicted there was never a time that I didn't see it the dude used to have like 60 [ __ ] bottles of it and um he would he would take medicine and he would drink two Yingling and I think when I look back I'm like man like that [ __ ] don't make a [ __ ] angry and uh yeah I mean it just got worse as I got
older but I remember the last fight that we had it was you know I used to I I remember I used to look at him and be crying and say you know like how come you don't love me like what I got this empty hole in my chest because I didn't understand emotion so I I'd like try to plead with him like yo like something's wrong with me I got something I got a hole I got like got a hole in my heart like or my chest I don't know how to I I don't even know how to explain it and uh you know the things he would say in rebuttal would be like K [ __ ] kill yourself your feelings don't matter shut the [ __ ] up when I say jump you say how high like it was there was no remorse for anything he did and I think that's why I despise him um you know the dude hurt me uh he hurt me for a lot of years that I had to repair um and even then I still carry over some bad bad attitude problems and uh you know the dude [ __ ] it got to the point where it was like either I'm gonna kill myself or I'mma kill him and finally he beat me half to death the one day I mean beat me half to death and uh I packed a bag of clothes and he came out he pulled a [ __ ] knife on me said he was going to kill me with it I shoved them ran out the [ __ ] door never went back Jesus Christ never went back at but how old were you then 16 I was just turning I was I I was either 16 and the week after 17 I don't remember um but I was it I was within two weeks of turning 17 when I left um or I just turned 17 and then left so uh it was in the month of September God damn and yeah so I left slept in the park for a couple nights and uh then I wind up standing up for a kid uh a black kid that was getting called Rachel slurs and that was my first friend I had made and uh yeah I mean he wind up having uh he definitely was on the Spectrum like he he wasn't the smartest kid um unfortunately like he he had some things that uh people would pick on him for um like being overweight and and he would say some weird stuff and whatnot but uh yeah he was the first f friend that I developed and um his brother was in juvie for arson trying to light somebody's house on fire and he was adopted by a white man so but the house that they lived in bro it was like the most disgusting living environment you could [ __ ]
think of catpiss infested hoarder of comics that were all destroyed from catpiss um like every part of the house would have been sticky like your shoes would stick to the [ __ ] floor um and there were [ __ ] everywhere the smell was like like a pneumonia um maggots in the sink because he refused for about four years to fix the garbage disposal that's how long it sat there Broken Live Wire on the overhead of the oven so I lived in there um and I wind up with I used to run papers to the courthouse and make like 75 bucks a week so every time I would make a little bit of money and his dad would give me some money sometimes to like try and help uh like straighten up the house and I would buy bleach and [ __ ] bleach [ __ ] and try to clean and bro it was disgusting like you could wash your clothes six [ __ ] times and it would still smell like cat piss in pneumonia and it was a very embarrassing very humbling way to live and I lived off in like instant food like microwave food for the next two years all my wrestling high school years and the next two years that I was there everything was either donated food from my wrestling coach um will Harman who [ __ ] man that that was my Saving Grace when I went to that school you know I don't want to miss that part like that's important to me that man is the whole reason I'm in the UFC now wow so um godamn dude those were the living conditions man like I mean I mean [ __ ] and he my wrestling coach would come to the house you know then I had truy officers coming after me because I miss so much school um it was either dius or some child services at a certain point that was like who's taking care of you who's your caregiver and you know I had a nasty response for him and nothing kind of came of it but it was like do I look like I'm [ __ ] unhealthy I remember slamming the door in the woman's face cuz I thought they were going to try and take me from the house but uh but yeah man it was shitty times and uh you know life beat you up in ways that you're not prepared for and doesn't change no matter how much money you make no matter you're here you're here there's always going to be a problem it's just how you roll with it so well for sure but having been through the problems that you've been through I
guarantee you you know how to navigate problems better than most people I voice it a lot you know people always think I'm bitching but I just I'm bro and I am sometimes I [ __ ] you know because that's my way of coping I'll put it out there so it's not stuck inside and that's something that's worth for me you know I say a lot of things that I feel and uh as long as I get it out I'm happy you know what I mean or any at least I'm settled I don't have that like anger like waiting to explode you know that's the you ever think of where you would be if it wasn't for martial arts in that same situation I would killed myself 100% I I struggled even when I had it you know and and that's the it's one of the only things that gets people out yeah I just I just didn't see a life for me man I was so stupid and when I say stupid like the whole time that my dad's a stay at- home Dad and and I want to give credit to my mother too you know my mother I never really felt like loved me that much and uh you know it is what it is but uh my mom worked her ass off off and that's why I get my work ethic that woman held two jobs she did what she could to provide she wasn't you know she wasn't a bum she would she tried and she did the best she could with a dude like that you know what I mean she was she never had another man still hasn't had another man to this day she was married to him for 20 years they had five blood kids and uh yeah I mean I owe my mom respect for that because she's a hardworking woman and uh didn't matter she she used to work at shopright Home Depot those were her two jobs and CNA and you know she she did what she could you know so I respect her for that and um yeah I mean [ __ ] man that dude was not teaching us H school was my point for years you were afraid to ask him to [ __ ] give you a spelling be because he was sitting at the [ __ ] computer playing games so if you did it what the [ __ ] do you want what the [ __ ] are you bother me like it was always a huge like explosion so you're a kid and you know from getting beat by this person it's like I don't want to make him mad he might [ __ ] slap me he might hit me he might do something so all of us were scared we didn't [ __ ]
learn anything I tested again in public school [ __ ] they held me back I was dumb as [ __ ] like it is what it is so uh yeah I mean so my point is making light of something you know dark you know but then coming back to the dark side man if if I didn't have MMA I don't I don't think I would be successful um I don't think I would have been strong enough I don't think I would have had confidence and uh I think life would have broke me man I think I would have I would have taken I would have taken you know the easy way out