Former WWE Writer Says Charles Manson Wanted To Meet Bray Wyatt

Charles Manson served as the inspiration for Bray Wyatt’s character, and according to Nick Manfredini Manson wanted to meet with the WWE star. Manfredini worked closely with the late Windham Rotunda to create the character of Bray Wyatt. He appeared on Freddie Prinze Jr’s Wrestling With Freddie for a new interview and spoke about his work with Wyatt and more.

During the conversation, Manfredini spoke about how the character was inspired by the infamous cult leader, who served life in prison for directing the Tate/LaBianca murders in Los Angeles in August of 1969. Manfredini noted that Manson learned of Wyatt and wanted to meet with him, but the notion was “immediately squashed” in WWE. You can see highlights from the discussion below:

On If There Was Resistance To Getting The Wyatts On TV:

“For the Wyatt Family, not really. Everybody kind of saw the act, they liked it… I mean, how could you not realize this guy was special? It was so obvious, just from watching anything he did, every time he opened his mouth. So it wasn’t like there was any resistance to getting him on TV back then. Once he got on TV, once he became successful, that’s when everybody started getting involved, changing things up. Certain things went ways we didn’t plan. From a character standpoint, it got a little supernatural, a little too much supernatural.”

On the Original Inspiration For Wyatt’s Character:

“He was very Charles Manson-inspired, right? So we would always watch — my YouTube search history back then was just ‘Charles Manson’ and ‘cult leader’ if anybody looked it up. So I’ve probably seen every Charles Manson quote, every video, every promo that he ever cut. We were trying to take little pieces from each one, and that was the style we wanted to go for.”

On Manson Wanting To Meet Wyatt:

“To get off topic, Charles Manson — I don’t know if this story has ever been told. Windham’s former teammate in college football, became a prison guard at Charles Manson’s prison [Coalinga State Prison]. Allegedly, this guy showed Manson the Bray Wyatt promos. And [Manson] wanted to meet [Wyatt], and this was a whole thing. I swear, it is 100% true.

On Mike Rotunda Bringing It Up To WWE:

“And so Mike Rotunda knew about it. I think he brought it up to somebody — I don’t know if it was Hunter or Vince (McMahon) or someone. And they immediately squashed it. Obviously, that’s terrible idea, we weren’t gonna go. Because they were like, ‘Can we shoot a Network special with Charles Manson?’ It was immediately squashed.

“And then afterwards, I was like, ‘Let’s just go. Next time we’re in Northern California, me and you — you know, let’s just put on a hat or something. Nobody will know it’s you. Let’s just go meet him.’ But you know, I thought more about it. And obviously it was a terrible, terrible idea. Would have been a good story but, a bad idea… It was like, wait a minute, this would be so weird to do. But, obviously, Bray Wyatt probably would have never seen TV again if we did that.”

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