Kurt Angle's Tragic Real-Life Story

Kurt Angle may be the ultimate wrestler, in that he conquered the amateur stage to the point of winning an Olympic gold medal before seamlessly transitioning into the wacky world of pro wrestling, conquering that as well. He's won world championships in WWE, TNA, and Japan, and has proven himself to the point where he's earned perhaps the greatest honor an old wrestler can receive: a non-physical TV role as a general manager. This way, he can soak in the fans' adulation without worrying about suffering another broken freakin' neck and possibly never moving again.

Whether playing a dorky yet condescending villain who thinks he's an American hero, an actual American hero, or a deadly serious wrestling machine, it seems there's nothing Angle can't do. Well, aside from having a normal, peaceful life, that is. Angle's story is filled with dark turns, some outside his control and some very much self-inflicted. Luckily, he's still around, despite all that life has thrown at him.

The following article includes allegations and descriptions of addiction and mental health issues.

Everything Kurt Angle has accomplished in both his career and life, he's had to do without his father. This was nobody's fault, except whatever spirit is in charge of setting up freak fatal accidents.

Kurt's father, David Angle, wasn't a star athlete. He was a crane operator, one who worked hard at supporting his kids' dreams. He attended all of Kurt's wrestling matches and football games, but unfortunately, he never got to see his Kurt become an amazing athlete. In August 1985, when Kurt was 16, his father fell out of a 15-foot-high crane and landed on his head. Even with his skull cracked, David Angle walked himself to the hospital. His gumption, however, couldn't save him from slipping into a coma, and he died two days later.

Kurt responded to this catastrophic loss by doing what he did best: excelling at athletics. He had an amazing football performance the same week his father passed. That said, his father's death might've been why young Kurt eventually became Kurt Angle. As he said in his autobiography (via ABC), "I grew up and overcame my fears the day [my father] died. I vowed right then and there to become a champion, to do whatever it took."

Like all great athletes, Kurt Angle had a great trainer, a man named David Schultz. Schultz, who won Olympic gold in 1984, helped prep Angle for the '96 games, but never got to see his protege triumph, thanks to perhaps the most violent and senseless murder in amateur wrestling history.

Schultz and Angle were members of Team Foxcatcher, a wrestling squad financed by wealthy philanthropist John du Pont (above). Sadly, du Pont had serious mental issues, including delusional schizophrenia and paranoia. According to court testimony, his issues got worse as his team prepped for the Olympics. He threatened multiple wrestlers, including pulling a gun on one while kicking him off the team.

Du Pont turned deadly on January 26, 1996, when he pointed his gun at Schultz and opened fire, shooting him three times. For that crime, du Pont was sentenced to 13-30 years in prison. (He died behind bars in 2010.) A devastated Angle wound up being the only member of Team Foxcatcher in the Olympics, and he dedicated himself to honoring his trainer's memory as best he could. Considering he won gold, his best was obviously good enough.

Throughout his pro wrestling career, Kurt Angle has constantly bragged about winning his gold medal "with a broken freakin' neck." He's said it enough that it's easy to forget just how serious the incident really was, and how it helped to start him down a long, rocky path.

During the Olympic trials, Angle landed hard on his head, herniating two discs, cracking two vertebrae, and pulling four neck muscles. And yet, despite suffering injuries that absolutely should've knocked him out of contention, he soldiered on, winning that trial match 4-3 after being down 0-3 pre-injury.

When he went in for his MRI the next day, his doctor ordered him to rest and heal for at least six months. That would mean no Olympics, so Angle got a second opinion. He found a doctor who was, in his words, "either smart enough or stupid enough to allow [him] to wrestle." The doc's solution: No more training and tons of Novocaine before each match. For normal people, wrestling with a broken-but-numb neck would be the stupidest idea ever, but Angle rode that numbness all the way to Olympic gold. However, that excessive use of drugs turned into misuse.

Kurt Angle featured in a number of memorable moments in his WWE career; however, there's one match that every fan still speaks about to this day: His clash with Shane McMahon at the King of the Ring in 2001. Now, it wasn't a technical masterpiece by any stretch of the imagination, but there were certain parts of the match where the pair inflicted serious damage on each other, such as when McMahon vertically suplexed Angle onto the floor. As it turns out, it was a spot that resulted in the worst pain Angle had ever felt, which says something coming from someone who has broken their neck.

On an episode of "The Kurt Angle Show" in 2021, Angle opened up about what happened. "I cracked my tailbone," he said. "It was extremely painful. Never felt pain like that in my life. It ran down my legs, I could barely stand up, and I knew I had to finish the match, but I wasn't sure how I was going to do it. I was clueless how I was going to finish the match, because it hurt so bad."

Angle explained how he still managed to throw McMahon through the glass, but the pain was excruciating. Ultimately, Angle finished the match, though it came at a cost to both him and McMahon in the end.

Between his father and coach, Kurt Angle had already dealt with plenty of loss. But then, on September 15, 2003, he got yet another tragic slap in the face, with the death of his sister from a drug even worse than what he was starting to feed himself.

Kurt's sister, Le'Anne, had a heroin addiction, one she succumbed to in 2003. Her devastated brother didn't talk about it publicly for a long time, until a 2014 video journal he put together to chronicle his comeback after surgery. As he explained, he dealt with her death in roughly the same way as his father's death and his coach's: going out there and being amazing at athletics. In this case, he wrestled a scheduled one-hour match with Brock Lesnar just a day after Le'Anne's passing. While it was an incredible match, in retrospect, Angle realizes it was a pretty awful grieving mechanism. As he said, "I didn't deal with [her death]. ... I went out there and had one of the best matches of my life. I hid the pain."

During the early 2000s, Kurt Angle used his star power to spotlight a serious heart condition called angina. An indicator of coronary artery disease, angina causes chest pain, fatigue, and difficulty breathing, making simple physical activities extremely taxing. Unfortunately, it's a condition Angle is all too familiar with.

At least 14 of Angle's family members have had angina or another heart problem. In 2003, he told ABC, "My sister had a heart attack at age 41, my dad had two heart attacks before he was 55, my uncle and all four of [my] grandparents died from heart attacks." In a blog post, the former Olympian revealed that his grandmother, the only grandparent he ever knew, died of a heart attack the day before his first NCAA Division 1 title.

Angle witnessed so many relatives deal with heart ailments that until about the age of 15 or 16 he believed everyone died of heart attacks. Sadly, when he was finally in the position to raise awareness about the disease that haunted his family, Angle's efforts were partially hamstrung by the very persona that made him famous. As a wrestling heel, he wasn't supposed to do "heartwarming stuff," so the WWE made limited efforts to publicize his awareness campaign.

Kurt Angle isn't the only wrestler to deal with drug addiction. However, his fight's been particularly challenging, and could have been fatal. In addition to the Olympics, Angle says he's broken his neck several times as a pro wrestler. One break in particular led him to start taking painkillers, which unfortunately became an addiction. Angle soon found himself taking up to 65 pills a day, of all sorts: Percocet, Vicodin, Lorcet, and more. He even had a system where he'd go from doctor to doctor to get various prescriptions and collect pill bottles.

In August 2005, he suffered a laundry list of injuries in a match, but this time he refused to take any more pills. He apparently steered clear of them for a while — a year later, he was reportedly still clean — and worked on cleaning his life up. That, unfortunately, didn't last, as shortly thereafter he was misusing more substances than ever. During a 2014 CBS interview, Angle admits to dealing with a seven-year-long addiction to a potentially lethal cocktail of morphine, Xanax, and alcohol, one he had only kicked about a year before. At the time, he was overcoming that addiction, knowing full well that such challenges need constant vigilance.

Kurt Angle's potentially lethal drug addiction consumed his life for years, and caused him to rack up four DUI arrests along the way. His first arrest occurred in September 2008, when a Pennsylvania woman reported Angle had almost hit her car as he left a bar. He was arrested at his home after refusing a breathalyzer, but because he wasn't arrested on the road, cops couldn't prove Angle had driven drunk, and a judge found him not guilty.

Subsequent arrests showed that 2008 was no aberration. In March 2011, he was arrested in North Dakota for driving drunk. He was given a year's probation, a fine, and suspended jail time. He stayed out of trouble until being arrested in September that year by Virginia police. Luckily for him, the judge didn't hold that pesky probation against him, simply fining him $1,500 and sending him on his way.

Then, in August 2013, Angle was arrested yet again, this time in Texas for reckless driving following a TNA show. Though he appears to have received no punishment from law enforcement, he announced shortly after that he was going to rehab.

In late 2008, Kurt Angle and his wife, Karen, finalized their divorce. What makes this a truly dark moment in Angle's life is that Karen soon found love in the arms of another wrestler; namely, one who worked for and co-owned TNA, the company that employed Angle. There are awkward situations, and then there's that.

In July 2009, someone reportedly called into the Bubba the Love Sponge radio show to say he saw Karen Angle canoodling with Jeff Jarrett, TNA's co-owner and one of their biggest stars. Obviously, he could've just been a crank, but a week later it was reportedly confirmed true. Imagine losing your spouse to your CEO and having to work side by side with that same CEO every day. That was Angle having to deal with Jarrett.

Angle reportedly knew about the relationship before it became public. He apparently knew when he and Jarrett had a storyline feud, meaning when Angle was yelling at Jarrett and threatening him, it may have been very real. But Karen and Jeff Jarrett have been happily married since 2011. Angle, meanwhile, has been married to an actress named Giovanna Yannotti since 2012.

As if working in TNA with Jeff Jarrett, the guy who wound up with his wife, wasn't bad enough, Kurt Angle faced legal issues after a controversial situation unfolded with another TNA coworker years later.

In August 2009, Angle was in a live-in relationship with fellow TNA wrestler Trenesha Biggers (known professionally as Rhaka Khan). Things turned sour and Khan wound up going to the police, reporting that Angle had harassed and assaulted her. She filed a PFA (protection from abuse order), and Angle was subsequently arrested.

In November 2009, Khan dropped the PFA prior to a court hearing. In its place was a civil court agreement that ordered Angle and Khan to stay away from each other completely for three years, unless wrestling schedules forced them to cross each other's' paths professionally.

If you or someone you know is dealing with domestic abuse, you can call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1−800−799−7233. You can also find more information, resources, and support at their website.

Kurt Angle's relationship with WWE chairman Vince McMahon went way beyond dollars and cents. In the "WWE 24" episode "Kurt Angle: Homecoming" (via Wrestling Inc.), Angle said, "Vince and I had a connection. He wasn't just a boss. He was a friend, a father figure, and I actually loved him. I loved him like a father."

At times, Vince treated Angle like a son. When Angle wanted to perform at WrestleMania with a broken neck, Vince tried to dissuade him. But when the wrestler insisted, Vince not only offered his support but told Angle, "I love you." A succession of neck fractures would fuel the wrestler's ever-worsening painkiller addiction. Part of the problem was that he "kept rushing back" from injury. He was desperately clinging to his spot in the company, which Vince had specially carved out for him.

In 2006, Angle unhappily departed from the WWE. He later wrote in his blog that he left because he "felt guilty about being a liability to Vince McMahon." He migrated to TNA, where he continued dealing with his addiction issues. All the while he still yearned for his father figure's approval, and WWE star A.J. Styles recalled that Angle still "talked about Vince all the time" after leaving WWE. In 2017, Angle made a triumphant return to WWE programming and to Vince.

In 2007, it was reported that back in 2004, Kurt Angle and other prominent athletes obtained banned substances like steroids from soon-to-be-banned doctors. This wasn't a get-ripped-quick scheme for Angle, who told ESPN he needed steroids to recover from his broken neck and had every intention of procuring them legally. But his doctor vetoed the plan and instead "went online illegally and bought them for cheaper so he could make money from me," Angle said. "The doctor robbed me is what happened."

Unfortunately, there's more to the story and none of it is good. Allegedly, J. Michael Bennett, the ethically flexible pharmacist who signed off on Angle's steroids, had been supplying athletes with drugs exclusively meant for livestock, which is incredibly dangerous. Angle insisted (via Wrestle Zone) that he had nothing to do with Bennett, who was sentenced to four years behind bars. He dismissed it all as "rumors" and called journalists "hideous" for reporting on it.

Kurt Angle's feats at the 1996 Summer Olympics are the stuff of legend. Plus, if someone watches WWE, they will know how Angle's on-screen character was never shy of reminding people about how he won a gold medal with a "broken freakin' neck."

Sixteen years after his victory, Angle aspired to test himself at the Olympics once again. Speaking to the BBC, he acknowledged it would be an uphill battle to make the team for the 2012 Summer Olympics, but he would try at the very least. "What are my chances of making the team?" Angle said. "Slim to none, I'm not going to lie, but if I can look you in the eye and say I have a chance that's more than enough. That's worth training five hours a day to get ready for the trials and for the biggest event of all, the Olympics."

Angle's dreams were shattered in April 2012, when he wasn't able to make the Olympic trials because of hamstring and knee injuries, as he revealed on his X account. The wrestler added that his doctor told him it would take four to six months to recover from the knee injury, effectively ending all chances of him making it to the Olympics.

Though Kurt Angle's life was largely clean and drama-free from 2014, he did since have to deal with one of the worst things anyone could possibly face: the realization that a beloved family member is a killer.

On September 20, 2015, Angle's brother David (not Eric, who had previously appeared on WWE TV as Angle's doppelganger) called 911 to say his wife, Donna, was unconscious. According to him, the two had a domestic argument that ended with her on the floor and his knee in her chest. She later died. Shortly after, David Angle was arrested and charged with homicide. In June 2016, Angle pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of involuntary manslaughter, and in September that year, a judge sentenced him to a minimum of 2.5 years in prison, with a maximum sentence of 10 years. As of early 2025, there is no news on David Angle's release date.

In January 2019, Kurt Angle posted a now-deleted message on his Facebook account (via ABC News) that no relative ever dreams of writing. "My beautiful 16-year-old niece Marjani Aquil got abducted today by a 19-year-old guy. Please call the police if you have seen this girl," Angle wrote.

Fortunately, it didn't take too long for Aquil to be found. The police received a tip-off from an individual who happened to be on Facebook Live and disclosed where they had seen Aquil. The day after she went missing, the police stormed into a house in McKeesport, Pennsylvania, to rescue Aquil and another girl who had been reported missing. According to the authorities, 19-year-old Jermaine Rodgers was taken into custody after the SWAT team found him hiding inside the coal cellar of the home.

In a since-deleted follow-up message on Facebook, Angle informed his fans that his niece had been found. He also thanked everybody for sharing the news, as well as the Pittsburgh police department for their efforts in finding Aquil.

The bruises and bumps in a wrestling ring take their toll on pro wrestlers. Considering the high-impact nature of the action and the high-risk possibility that something could go wrong, a lot of superstars may experience concussions — and Kurt Angle was no exception here. On a 2022 episode of his podcast, "The Kurt Angle Show," Angle mentioned how wrestlers had a mentality where they would complete a match — no matter what condition they were in. He spoke about one concussion where his opponent, Eddie Guerrero (a professional wrestler you may not know passed away), had to lead him through the match to the finish because he was dazed and out of it. However, he expressed how he shouldn't have been in that situation at all.

Angle revealed that he experienced four concussions during his time in wrestling, with three of them being described as "pretty bad." For the superstar, he feels the effects of those injuries now. "Even to this day, I'm starting to not remember things, and I'm only in my early 50s," Angle said. "But I've gotten a little damage to my brain. There's no doubt about it. My memory is not that great anymore. I really have to think hard about remembering the past."

Kurt Angle's athleticism runs in his genes, as he described his daughter Giuliana as being "an Olympic-caliber swimmer." Because of this, Angle believes he's still alive and able to tell the story of a jet skiing ride that almost went terribly wrong.

In a 2023 episode of his podcast, "The Kurt Angle Show," Angle spoke about how he went jet skiing with his children. The former WWE champion explained how he tried to turn the jet ski in the ocean, but he ended up flipping the vehicle. Even though Angle had his safety vest on, he started to submerge under the water. Matters were further compounded by two issues: The jet ski drifted away from Angle, and he can't swim.

"It was like 50 feet away from us," Angle said before describing how his daughter jumped into rescue mode. "She didn't know whether to go to the jet ski or to me. She came over to me and saved my life. She pulled me over to the jet ski. She swam 50 yards with me in her hands." Angle added that his daughter even helped him to get up onto the jet ski because he struggles to lift himself up because of his prior serious neck injury that nearly kept Angle from Olympic gold. "She jumped on behind me and I said 'You know what honey? You just saved my life.' She really did."

Kurt Angle reached the summit of both amateur and professional wrestling. He's had two Hall-of-Fame-worthy careers and goes down as a legend in both fields. That said, Angle admitted to SunSport in 2024 that his Team USA teammates never once congratulated him for his achievements in pro wrestling. "No, but there's a reason for that," he said. "Amateur wrestling kind of frowns upon pro wrestling."

Angle explained how there's a stigma that when people mention the word "wrestler," the first thing that comes to mind is the theatricality of the WWE, which a lot of people presume to be fake. For amateur wrestlers, they consider themselves to be superior to the predetermined and sports entertainment-based flavor of pro wrestling.

Angle, though, isn't ashamed of being recognized and appreciated for both. In fact, he added how he sees himself as being someone who helped open the door for other amateur wrestlers, such as Brock Lesnar and Shelton Benjamin, to be able to cross the divide and find a way to make a living after their amateur wrestling careers ended.

A broken neck would have ended any normal athlete's career, but Kurt Angle defied the odds — and countless other injuries — to write his name into wrestling lore. It came at a price, though, as Angle revealed to Ewrestling. Now, in his retirement, he lives with what he describes as "excruciating pain all the time."

Angle explained how he was meant to get surgery to put rubber disc replacements in his neck, but that due to his past injuries, his neck ended up fusing itself together and he hardly has any discs left. This leaves him in a tough situation where his only solution is to manage the pain as best as he can. "I do a lot of maintenance on it," he said. "I try to keep it as mobile as I can. And I lost about three inches in both arms, from atrophy, my neck, and I lost a big muscle right in my chest."

Angle is under no illusions that there was a consequential trade-off he made to achieve what he did in his life. "I'm suffering dearly, and I'm paying the price for the career I had," he added.

The internet wrestling community is widely renowned for being an active and vocal fanbase. They love to discuss former and current superstars, using memes and nicknames to refer to all the shenanigans that happen in pro wrestling. In the past, Kurt Angle has been open about his misuse of painkillers, especially during his TNA run, which has led to fans calling him "Perc Angle" — an obvious play on his name and Percocet. For fans, there's a myth that he wrestled better during this era because of the painkillers he was on.

However, Angle has been quick to dismiss this notion, saying he took the painkillers in the morning and after he wrestled, but never before he stepped into the ring. Speaking to Chris Van Vliet, he explained how he has been sober for over a decade, but he's constantly reminded of the Perc Angle nickname. "That's one of the things that I still have to deal with, but I understand that for the fans, it's more of a term of endearment," he said. "'How great was Perc Angle? He was awesome.' So I know they're not saying it to try to hurt my feelings."

That being said, he admitted to Van Vliet that the name still hurts and gets to him. He added that it's fine if the fans want to talk about or say it among themselves, but he doesn't want them to say it directly to him.

If you or anyone you know needs help with addiction issues or mental health issues, contact the relevant resources below:

• The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration website or contact SAMHSA's National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357).

• The Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741741, call the National Alliance on Mental Illness helpline at 1-800-950-NAMI (6264), or visit the National Institute of Mental Health website.