The story of Aaron Hernandez is a tragic one. He was a victim of violent abuse from a father who pushed both of his sons to excel at sports, who turned into a professional athlete with the New England Patriots, and at age 23, was found guilty of first-degree murder in 2015 and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. According to his mom, his dad Dennis profoundly impacted his life in a way from which he never recovered.
American Sports Story: Aaron Hernandez, which debuted on FX on September 17, 2024, doesn’t go much into the details concerning Dennis’ abuse of his sons, but, as Vulture writer Ben Rosenstock points out, “It’s clear that Dennis frequently gets mean and violent with his sons and wife, though we don’t see the worst of the real-life man’s alleged abuses.”
What happened to Aaron Hernandez’s dad, Dennis?
Dennis Hernandez died suddenly in January 2006 at the age of 49, when Aaron was 16 years old. His death was due to complications from a routine hernia surgery, but the day after he said he wasn’t feeling well. He developed an infection and was moved to intensive care.
Dennis’ death had a profound impact on Aaron, according to his mom, Terri Valentine-Hernandez. She believed that his father’s death affected him so greatly that he rebelled against authority figures as a way of acting out. His brother Jonathan, aka DJ, said Aaron was so devastated and that it completely changed things for him.
“It was more like a shock. Everyone was close to my father, but I was the closest,” Aaron told USA Today. “I was with him more than my friends. When that happened, who do I talk to, who do I hang with? It was tough.” Aaron said that home life got harder after Dennis Sr.’s death, too. “It was a mess with a lot of family issues, fighting and disagreements,” he continued. “I’m the person who keeps both sides of my family together, and when I wasn’t around it was crazy.”
DJ once described how he once threatened to call the police on his father’s abuse, “I picked up the phone once to call, to seek help,” he told the Globe. “And his response was, ‘Call them.’ And he handed me the phone, and he said, ‘I’m going to beat you even harder, you and your brother, and they’re going to have to pull me off of you when they knock down the door.’”
“His father was pretty strict,” Sheriff Thomas Hodgson of Bristol County told CNN in 2015. “I mean, he told me his father used to make him—to shoot 500 shots before he went, sometimes to play with his friends. His dad clearly kept them anchored.”
