Finn Bálor Recalls Incident Rushing Back To Ireland for His Sister’s Wedding With Partial Demon Makeup

During a recent interview with Insight with Chris Van Vliet, WWE Superstar Finn Bálor spoke about the pains of applying his Demon makeup, recalling an incident during his NXT days. Balor was unable to wash all the makeup off when he needed to rush back home to Ireland to attend his sister’s wedding. Below are some highlights from Insight:

Finn Bálor on the Longest Time It’s Ever Taken Him To Put on His Demon Makeup

“Probably six hours.”

On Rushing To His Sister’s Wedding in Ireland, Unable To Clean All His Demon Makeup Off

“I’ll tell you a story. So, we did a photo shoot at the Performance Center. It was like a test paint on a photo shoot at the Performance Center. This was when I was in NXT, and we did it on a Friday; the paint team had come, and they painted me up, but then I was going to train in it, do photos, work around, make sure it doesn’t come off on the canvas, and stuff like that. So, after we’d done it, the team had gone, but they also didn’t leave the remover, which you need a very specific remover, because it’s alcohol-based paint. I can stand in the shower for an hour, and it’ll just be perfectly on me. You kind of have to sweat it out through your pores, and then you need like an alcohol solution to break it down, so it really chaffs your skin, you’ll be really red after it, and stuff. But they’d gone. But this is a Friday night in Orlando, and my sister’s getting married on Saturday in Ireland.

“So I have to catch a red eye at 10 o’clock from Orlando to Ireland, so we finished the shooting at 6 o’clock, run back to my apartment. I’m showering, I’m scrubbing my face, I get out of the shower, and I look in the mirror, there’s teeth and everything here, there’s a big eye on my back. I’m like, I gotta go to the airport, my sister’s getting married, so I get dressed. There’s still a demon on me here. I’ve got it mostly off my face. Fly to Ireland, land, run home to my parents’ house, get the suit on, put this shirt and tie on. I go to the church, but little did anyone know, if I had to unbutton my shirt, there’s still the demon under [my shirt]. But thankfully she got married by a humanist, she’s very out there a little bit, and so it wasn’t actually a church, and it wasn’t per se, a religious ceremony, so that gives me a little bit more.

On How Long It Took To Get All the Makeup Off

“The next couple of days. I’ve never told this story before, either. We did the Demon in Saudi Arabia. I wrestled Andrade, and we’ve promoted the match, we fly to Saudi. I’m getting painted, this paint doesn’t feel like the normal paint. What’s going on? I asked the girl that was doing it at the time, I said, ‘Is this the normal paint? It doesn’t feel right.’ She goes, ‘Oh no. They told me I couldn’t bring the normal paint because it has alcohol in it. Alcohol is not legal here.’ I said, ‘Did anyone not think of telling me because I’m the one that has to wrestle in this?’ She goes, ‘Oh no, but I have a solution.’ What’s the solution? ‘Well, if we use hairspray all over you, it kind of sets it a little bit more.’ Okay, well, you’re an expert. So they paint me, they cover me in hairspray. It’s also Saudi Arabia outdoors, so it’s like 100 degrees. So pretty much by the time I’ve gotten to the ring, it’s starting to come off. So then we do the match, it’s a physical match, we’re sweating like crazy. I start as The Demon, I end as Finn in the match. No problem.

“So we get through the match, no injuries, fantastic, that’s all I’m happy about. Later on in the show was Undertaker Goldberg, and I’m watching a match backstage, in a hallway. I’m like looking at the screen, and I’m like, did something hit a smoke machine in here, it felt like it was being smoked up on the entrance. But it wasn’t, it was just my eyes, because what had happened was the hairspray had ran into my eyes and burnt my retinas. I went blind; I was essentially blind where I had to be linked by the guys, brought out of the building, linked by the guys, just carried up the steps onto the charter. I couldn’t see on the flight. We landed in Germany to refuel the plane. The doc had to leave the plane, go to a chemist, get some special medicine to heal my eyes. Then we flew when we landed in San Francisco, like 15 hours later, and it was just starting to unblur. But I guess all that hairspray had irritated my iris so much that I couldn’t see. That was probably the scariest thing that’s ever happened to me in wrestling.”