Dwayne Johnson has recently added politics to his CV. A recent cover story about him running for president, for example, saw him constantly getting asked if he will consider a White House run. But this weekend found people taking a break from current politics to celebrate a couple notable milestones — one involving birth, the other death.
It’s @TheRock‘s birthday today!
We hope he’s celebrating with a cheat day
pic.twitter.com/7nRKjMuTIl
— ESPN (@espn) May 2, 2021
Happy birthday to @TheRock!
— WWE Network (@WWENetwork) May 2, 2021
Sunday marked Johnson’s 49th birthday, which he celebrated in part by doing his best Guy Fieri impression and raising money for restaurants that have struggled during the coronavirus pandemic. And while fans relished the birthday of the guy who gave us Young Rock, there was a lot more going on with him online a well.
A lot of people online also paid tribute to one of the weirder internet artifacts out there: the tweet Johnson posted a decade ago about the secret raid US forces carried out that led to the death of Osama Bin Laden.
Just got word that will shock the world – Land of the free…home of the brave DAMN PROUD TO BE AN AMERICAN!
— Dwayne Johnson (@TheRock) May 2, 2011
That tweet, which has hilariously low engagement given its significance, was posted before the press conference then-president Barack Obama gave announcing that the Al Qaeda terrorist had been killed in Pakistan. Looking back on a lot of ways that news was broken made for some interesting scrolling on social media on Saturday,
This oral history of the Bin Laden raid is interesting but I really just want an oral history of the White House learning The Rock knew Bin Laden was dead https://t.co/A0PMufpXpj pic.twitter.com/MHsufUPjwK
— Josh Billinson (@jbillinson) April 30, 2021
Ten years ago The Rock killed bin Laden and John Cena reported live from the scene
— Jason Kirk (@thejasonkirk) April 30, 2021
thinking about how the rock found out about the bin laden raid before all of us https://t.co/ccNoovCb9C
— john (@mexicanwilddog) May 1, 2021
The Rock breaking Bin Laden’s death has like 3,000 RTs, now people get that posting a picture of a grilled cheese like “who remembers these???” https://t.co/Fe1CFNhjoj
— Mike (@85mf) May 1, 2021
The Rock really Woj Bombed the Bin Laden news 10 years ago and none of us knew
https://t.co/5laFN81dD7
— Jeff (@JeffJSays) May 2, 2021
Whether Johnson will run for highest office remains to be seen. But at least we know one place where he’ll always be president.