'Hassel'-Free: David Hasselhoff Changes Name to 'David Hoff'

Former Baywatch hunk David Hasselhoff lifted a big weight off of his muscular shoulders on Thursday — by shortening his last name to simply “Hoff.”

“I’ve been wanting to drop the ‘Hassel’ from my life for years,” the 63-year-old actor says in a video announcing the change. “Now, I have made it official — David Hoff.”

The actor, who has long been nicknamed “The Hoff,” followed up with a short tweet celebrating the change.

The actor has kept busy since his tenure on Baywatch came to an end, with small roles in films like Dodgeball and Click and in a short run of episodes of The Young and the Restless. Meanwhile, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Zac Efron are set to play the male leads in a film version of Baywatch due to begin production early next year.

UPDATE: A spokesman for Hasselhoff told Us Weekly that the name change video was part of an ad campaign set to launch in Australia this weekend and that the star currently has no plans to legally change his name.