Who is The Rock’s trailblazing ex-wife, Dany Garcia? The bodybuilding businesswoman became his manager after their divorce and made the deals that turned him from WWE superstar into Hollywood bigwig

He got his start as a popular WWE wrestler, but Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson made the jump from athlete to actor then to major entertainment industry player in one of the most successful transitions in entertainment history. While his ethos of always being the “hardest worker in the room” has played a large role in his overwhelming success, Johnson can also thank his ex-wife Dany Garcia for helping him navigate a career swerve from acting to producing with a segue into business. A second-generation Cuban-American who grew up in New Jersey, Dany Garcia studied at the University of Miami (where she met Johnson), and began her career in finance after graduating with a degree in international finance and marketing. The couple eventually married and had a daughter, Simone Johnson, but called it quits in 2007 after 10 years of marriage, per the Daily Mail. At the time, Johnson was trying to move from wrestling to acting and, with the amicable divorce behind them, asked Garcia to manage him, as reported in Foundr. She got to work building a multifaceted empire that includes Johnson’s Seven Bucks Productions company. Johnson is now happily married and shares two daughters with his second wife, singer Lauren Hashian, but he still works closely with Garcia, who is clearly still part of The Rock’s ohana. So who is Dany Garcia? Here’s what else we know about Dwayne Johnson’s ex-wife. She’s a former banker Garcia is former banker who climbed the ranks at Merrill Lynch before founding her own private wealth management firm, JDM Partners. After her divorce from Johnson, she left the firm to become his manager and founded Seven Bucks Productions – and its subsidiaries for TV and digital platforms – in 2012. Under these banners, they produced a number of films and TV shows that Johnson has starred in, including Baywatch (2017), Black Adam (2022) and Ballers. Later, Garcia created The Garcia Companies to channel her business acumen into brokering major deals for Johnson across a diverse portfolio of projects. Now, the empire includes interests in fashion, sports, technology and F&B and includes companies Athleticon, Acorns, Atom Tickets and TGC Management. Garcia was also instrumental in paving the way for Johnson’s Project Rock Collection with sportswear brand Under Armour, per The Hollywood Reporter. Despite successfully rebranding The Rock from actor to business mogul, Garcia revealed that she had to take a step back to focus on the business strategy of The Garcia Companies as a whole. “I fired myself – he was very gracious – because I needed to move into a strategic advisory position over his enterprise in particular, which is ginormous,” she shared in an interview with Foundr. She’s a sports mogul Per Bloomberg, Garcia became the first woman in the US to be a majority owner in a major sports league when she led the acquisition of the second tier football league XFL in 2020, purchasing it from former WWE CEO Vince McMahon. She later led the merger with the United States Football League to form the United Football League in 2023 while retaining partial ownership. The Rock took to Instagram to celebrate Garcia’s impressive achievement. “I have the pleasure to illuminate this huge milestone in sports history. My XFL partner, [Dany Garcia] becomes the first woman to own an entire professional sports league. She was the architect in our strategic acquisition of the XFL and now we proudly and humbly go to work with our partners – all for the love of football. Congrats Dany! Let’s get to work.” She’s won plenty of accolades for her work Garcia’s influence and impact in Hollywood has been publicly recognised on several occasions. She’s made the cut on numerous lists that celebrate women in entertainment, including Hollywood Reporter’s 2021 Women in Entertainment Power 100 and Entrepreneur’s Women of Influence in 2022. She even made Variety’s 500 Most Important People in Global Media list six years in a row from 2018 to 2023. This year, ESPN also honoured Garcia’s “remarkable life and achievements” as a “visionary businesswoman” with a documentary titled My Name is Dany Garcia. The film details her “remarkable trajectory” as “a titan in the realms of business, entertainment and sports, and the architect behind some of today’s most successful enterprises, brands, and talents”. She’s also a bodybuilder – like her husband Outside her busy life as a CEO and producer, Garcia has found love and a passion for bodybuilding. She reportedly married Dave Rienzi, her ex-husband’s personal trainer, in 2014. Rienzi and Garcia are collaborators on both the personal and business fronts – Rienzi is The Garcia Companies’ Chief Innovation Officer, according to the company’s website. A lifelong bodybuilder, she entered her first competition in 2011 and earned her pro stripes just three years later in 2014 through the International Fitness and Bodybuilding Federation.