EXCLUSIVE: Ailing WWE Hall of Famer Ric Flair could lose his Atlanta home after being slammed with a $280,000 tax bill just days after his release from hospital
- Both the IRS and the Georgia Department of Revenue have taken out liens on the Nature Boy's five-bed mansion in suburban Atlanta
- Tax documents show the wrestler owes the Federal government $239,871 on his 2016 to 2018 earnings as well as 38,703 to his home state
- Flair's $370,000 home could eventually be seized but the WWE Hall of Famer - worth an estimated $3 million - has years to settle the debt
Ailing wrestling icon Ric Flair has been slammed with a $280,000 tax bill just days after getting out of the hospital for heart surgery, DailyMail.com can exclusively reveal.
Both the IRS and the Georgia Department of Revenue have taken out liens on the Nature Boy's five-bed mansion in suburban Atlanta, where he lives with his fifth wife, Wendy Barlow.
Tax documents show the legendary grappler owes the Federal government $239,871 on his 2016 to 2018 earnings, plus a further $38,703 to his home state.
Flair's $370,000 home could eventually be seized but the WWE Hall of Famer - worth an estimated $3 million - has years to settle the debts.
The 70-year-old - real name Richard Morgan Fliehr - was hospitalized in Atlanta last month because of an unspecified medical issue.
Ailing wrestling icon Ric Flair has been slammed with a $280,000 tax bill just days after getting out of the hospital for heart surgery, DailyMail.com can exclusively reveal
Flair's $370,000 home could eventually be seized but the WWE Hall of Famer - worth an estimated $3 million - has years to settle the debts
It was originally described as a 'very serious' emergency but the wrestler's son-in-law Conrad Thompson later told Fightful.com it was a planned procedure and the situation was 'not as grave or serious' as reports made out.
After getting out May 22 Flair took to Twitter last week in full character to assure fans he was OK and complain about the huge hospital bills.
'First of all, thank you to my beautiful family to all my friends, to all the doctors, nurses, everybody that brought me back again,' Flair said.
'It’s a miracle again. It’s a 1.8 million dollar tune-up on the Nature Boy. That’s how much all this has cost. Thank God for insurance. Well almost all the insurance. A lot of cash out of our pockets.
'But that’s OK because I lived and I’m living here to tell you the kiss-stealing, wheeling-dealing, limousine-riding, jet-flying son of a gun is not gonna change, slow down. I’m gonna move forward.'
Flair, considered to be one of the greatest and most flamboyant professional wrestlers of all time, has been dogged by money troubles down the years despite his vast earning power.
The IRS first went after the 16-time world champion in 1990 for a reported $62,000 in back taxes which he promptly paid back.
Flair found himself squaring up to the Federal government again in 2000 when his estate was hit with another lien for $874,000.
When the IRS began to seize Flair’s WWE earnings in 2005 as a means of paying off his debts, the platinum-blond fighter admitted that he and his second wife Elizabeth had spent wildly and 'lived well beyond' their means.
Ric Flair on twitter:'On The Mend, Getting Better Every Day!!! Thank God For Wonderous Wendy Never Leaving My Side. I Hope She Never Gets Tired Of Taking Care Of The Naitch! It's A Lot!'
He started an online business called ‘Ric Flair Finance’ in September 2007 but that shuttered in less than a year.
Flair continued to wrestle well into his 60s and recently made an appearance at Wrestlemania 35, where his daughter Charlotte, now a major WWE star, was performing.
The pair settled a $5.5 million defamation lawsuit last year brought against them by her ex-husband Riki Paul Johnson in federal court in Charlotte.
Johnson said their 2017 father-daughter autobiography 'Second Nature' made multiple 'false assertions' including claims he physically and psychologically abused the Flairs and was fired from two jobs for drug abuse.
The two sides later 'reached agreement on and executed a Settlement Agreement and Mutual Release of All Claims,” according to the Charlotte Observer. Terms were not disclosed.
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Flair has also battled serious health issues in recent years, most notably in 2017 when he was in a coma for 11 days and reportedly near death after his intestine ruptured.
In his earlier 2015 book, 'Ric Flair: To Be the Man,' he admitted to suffering from alcoholic cardiomyopathy, which is a heart problem caused by prolonged alcohol abuse.
His son Reid died of a drug overdose in 2013.
As a high schooler in Wisconsin in the late 1960s Flair participated in interscholastic wrestling, football, and track, but by 1972 he was trying to make a name for himself in theatrical wrestling.
Adopting his Nature Boy nickname and Woooooo! catchphrase, he rose to prominence in the 1980s and 1990s with the WCW and the WWF (now the WWE), becoming one of the most recognizable faces in the sport.
