Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson recalls people mistaking him for a girl growing up

Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson has had a tough personality for as long as we can remember, and even his throwback high school pictures show him as a muscular guy. However, there used to be a time when he had "soft features" that led to embarrassing childhood stories.

During a recent appearance on Sunday Today with Willie Geist, the former wrestler confessed that he was often mistaken for a girl growing up, so much so that people even directly asked him his gender. The 49-year-old recalled: "I would say between the ages of 7 and 11, people thought that I was a little girl because I had really soft features and I had really soft Afro hair."

Recounting one such awkward encounter that took place on his school bus on his first day of fifth grade, the actor said: "I sit down next to a kid, and within 60 seconds, he goes, 'Can I ask you something?' I said, 'Yeah.' He goes, 'Are you a boy or a girl?'"

Johnson also discussed how it was moving around all through his childhood because of his father Rocky Johnson's wrestling career. The "Jumanji" actor had attended 13 different schools by the time he entered high school.

"I have had a Forrest Gump-ian childhood growing up. Wrestling in the '80s and in the '70s was way different than it is today. A lot of the times, including my father, the wrestlers would live paycheck to paycheck," he recalled.

Johnson's revelations come weeks after his childhood was documented in the hit NBC sitcom "Young Rock." The actor also stars in the series, while his younger years are portrayed by three different actors — Adrian Groulx, Bradley Constant, and Uli Latukefu.

During a press tour for the documentary, the actor admitted that his childhood was complicated, especially because of his relationship with his father, who died in January last year at the age of 75.

"Growing up, and you know we specifically went with these timelines in my life that were very defining times at 10 years old, 15 and 18 ... there's a lot of things in between those years that took place ... but it was complicated and the relationship that I had with my dad was incredibly complicated — that was fueled by tough love," Johnson recalled.