Dana White Opens Up on the Mother Who Wrote a Book Against Him

Dana White doesn't do public therapy. But sitting down with The Diary Of A CEO, the UFC president finally walked through the story behind one of the strangest chapters of his career: the 2011 unauthorized biography his own mother wrote about him, titled Dana White, King of MMA. Fifteen years later, he's still unpacking the fallout.

The breaking point, by White's account, came during a two-week work trip to London alongside business partner Lorenzo Fertitta — back before email reached him everywhere on the road. When he got home, his inbox was full of messages from his mother June that read less like family and more like a demand letter: pay a lump sum or installments, something about buying a bar. The emails got nastier the longer they went unanswered. That, White said, was the beginning of the end.

What the Book Cost Him

White insists the accusations didn't wound him the way people assume. What bothered him, he said, was the collateral damage — claims he calls untrue, people dragged into the story who'd done nothing, and private photos he believes June had no right to publish. He's never actually read it; his knowledge comes secondhand, from lawyers. His framing is blunt: this is the kind of thing that happens once you become successful.

June raised White and his sister Kelly largely alone, with their father, Dana White Sr., mostly absent. Both parents have since died, a detail White shared in a 2023 interview with Piers Morgan. He's made a point of not using his platform to trash them now that they're gone.

And despite the years of silence, White doesn't pretend his mother handed him nothing. He credits her — a single mom who worked relentlessly, loaded two kids and a dog into a car and drove from Boston to Vegas, tornadoes in the Midwest and all. He and Kelly still ask each other how she pulled it off. Whatever happened with the book, he said, they respect what she did.

It's a rare window into a man who runs the biggest promotion in combat sports but rarely lets anyone past the business. White has led the UFC since 2001 and built a reputation for saying exactly what he thinks about everyone — except, usually, his own family. When he does ask whether his parents made him who he is, his answer is unqualified: absolutely, 100 percent, good and bad alike.