It may be a declaration of independence – a clear step away from a storied past in schlock TV, cheesy pop music, rehab and “Sharknado 3.” Or it may be just be part of an advertising campaign.

Whatever is true, David Hasselhoff – “Baywatch” and “Knight Rider” icon – claims he has changed his name to “David Hoff.”

“I’ve been wanting to drop the hassle from my life for years,” Hoff said in a video posted to his YouTube page in which he displayed a suspect-looking “Certificate of Name Change” document. “Now, I have made it official: David Hoff.” On Twitter, he added: “Big news today and a massive relief for me. … it feels great!”

A Hasselhoff representative said that this wasn’t an actual, legal change fraught with any sort of Freudian significance.

As for the video: “It’s an excerpt from an ad campaign that launches in Australia this weekend,” a Hasselhoff spokesman not named by Us magazine told the publication. “David is just having some fun and more will be revealed in the next 24 hours.”

Though the ad campaign is now a bit hoary, Hasselhoff flirted with a name change for Clorox earlier this year.

“You know, my name is Hasselhoff, so I took the ‘hassel’ out of the ‘hoff,’ and I (became) The Hoff,” he told Yahoo earlier this year. “Now I’m taking the hassle out of cleaning and it’s a way to kind of interact with my fans and get in people’s faces in a fun way.”

If the 63-year-old’s latest announcement is just a pitch for a cleaning product, that makes the Hasselhoff-to-Hoff narrative a lot less interesting. But, as his memoir shows, he’s been hung up on his name since he got it.