Bayley On Whose Idea Her Heel Turn Was, Why Fans Started To Turn On Her Beforehand

Bayley underwent a dramatic change in 2019 when she turned heel in WWE for the first time, and she recently talked about why that turn came about. The Damage CTRL leader spoke with Ariel Helwani recently for BT Sport and discussed whose idea it was for her to turn heel and why she thought fans were starting to turn on her before she switched away from her “Hugger” character. You can check out a couple of highlights below:

On whose idea the heel turn was: “The whole character change? It was all my idea. When it first happened, I was in, I don’t know if you remember, like such a weird time in my career where it wasn’t really going where we all thought it would. And I felt the fans turning on me already and just not buying into it. So I didn’t want to just kind of like, coast along. And I wanted to — I knew when I joined WWE, when I wanted to be a wrestler, I wanted to be able to do everything. I wanted to be bad, be good… have this match, do that. Like, I wanted to do everything, and ride that wave of the WWE, you know? So I felt it was a perfect opportunity.

And the the last match I had before like the change was — I forget the PPV, but I lost the championship to Charlotte, and then I had to break down and cry. And [they] told me just to throw a fit and cry, and cry. And I thought it was so strange, but I did it. And I just told myself, ‘I can’t come back the same Bailey,’ right? So I talked to Vince, and I talked to my writers, and threw out this whole idea of a complete 180 character change. And then he’s like, ‘Okay, we’re gonna do it.’ But it was like two days later, so I had no time to really figure out what this is going to be. And then we did that change, and then it’s just grown throughout the years, now that I’ve had time to kind of settle in and see how the fans react to it.”

On why the fans started to turn on him: “I think to me, it just felt natural, you know? What I was doing that at the time felt unnatural to them. But I think it’s because I truly outgrew it, like the character I was trying to portray. Because when I was the hugger in NXT, and I was super fan favorite, I really felt all these things. I really felt in awe to be in WWE, I felt in awe to be around all these Superstars. Because I was a superfan growing up, you know? But as I got older and as I had more experience, and I had won a championship, you know? It’s like, ‘Alright, you’ve done these things. Get over it. Get over being excited about being here. You’ve been here for six years already.’ So I think they just didn’t feel that connection like they used to? Which is totally understandable because I didn’t either. I felt like I was — you know, it was time to just have a change.”

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit BT Sport with a h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.