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Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson posts teen photo: 'Kids thought I was an undercover cop'

The actor and WWE star posted the photo of his 16-year-old self on Instagram and added, "I'm a grateful man for the life I have today."
/ Source: TODAY

In honor of Throwback Thursday, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson shared a photo that he says shows why kids mistook him for an "undercover cop" at age 16.

"By the time I was 16 yrs old, I had already enrolled in four high schools across the country due to being evicted and lil' trouble with the law," reads part of the caption accompanying the photo posted on the 43-year-old's Instagram, Twitter and Facebook accounts. "I was also 6'4 225lbs, rockin' a dead caterpillar on my lip … and all the kids in every high school thought I was an undercover cop cause I looked like a mutated, yet handsome SOB of a man child."

Around that time, he added, he was in Nashville, where he was "already hangin' out in [honky] tonk dive bars on Music Row and hustlin' cars from crackheads."

Johnson offered some present-day insight with his nostalgia. "Yup, one of the many reasons why I'm a grateful man for the life I have today," he wrote, "and also grateful I straight up kicked puberty's [butt] early in life."

Many of Johnson's more recent photos have also made headlines. In May, he briefly set a record for the most selfies (105) in three minutes; in June, he sideswiped a car, but cheered up and posed for pics with the owner, who reportedly "refused to accept any money"; and in August, Johnson shared a photo of himself with a cancer survivor whom he called "my inspiration."

Follow TODAY.com writer Chris Serico on Twitter.