Scarlett On How AJ Styles Fought For Her Backstage in WWE, Killer Kross On Backlash To His Viral Promo

During a recent interview with Insight with Chris Van Vliet, former WWE Superstars Killer Kross and Scarlett discussed how AJ Styles fought for them backstage in WWE, the backlash backstage to Kross’ viral promo, and more. Below are some highlights from Insight:

Kross on his viral promo and the aftermath: “So we do that. Everybody loved it. We leave. The next day was weird at Raw. So aside from everything that I’ve talked about, so we don’t talk about it again, I get a phone call from somebody in talent relations, and he says, ‘Creative is not happy. There’s heat. They’re pissed.’ I was like, Well, I apologize about that. Let me go take care of that right now. I have a great relationship with them. They’re right across the hall. He’s like uh, I said, ‘No, no, dude, this is my fault. Let me take care of it. No problem.’ I go across the hall. I speak to some of the writers, explain everything. They’re like, ‘We have no idea what you’re talking about. We haven’t talked to that guy in two weeks.’ Some of them didn’t even see it. So I was like, What’s going on here? So walk around the building and just looking at everything, everyone’s saying, Hello, everything feels fine. I call him back, no answer. The next day, no answer. I think it was like the third day he finally picked up. He’s like, ‘Yeah, I shouldn’t have said it that way. I apologize, it was actually Hunter.’ And I was like, man. ‘So since we spoke, have you talked to Hunter and explained everything to him that I explained to you?’ He’s like, ‘No.’ And I was like, so you’re letting our boss just sit there and fume for how many days now? You could have just told me this on Monday. He was down the hall. Could go talk to him and just explain all this. This is like a misunderstanding. So I eventually did speak with Hunter and cleared the air with him, you know, it’s a massive company with a lot of different departments, and not all of them are in lockstep with communication. He was super cool about it. Once we spoke to him, he understood where I was coming from. It wasn’t like a live thing. It was on YouTube. But just weird man. That wasn’t the first time I got an apology from him.”

Kross on WWE possibly feeling he went into business for himself: “I think the image or the idea of the brand looking like the bad guy is not something they want, for whatever the reasons are, and that’s okay, it’s their show. It’s not like you go on to Curb Your Enthusiasm and rewrite Larry David scripts, you’re on Larry David’s show. So I understand that. But really, what I was doing was I was just taking different things that played out and turning paint into art, as I was saying.”

Kross on if he thinks the promo factored into the tense contract negotiations: “No. Things felt weird, even going back into January. So I feel like at the height of what we were doing on TV with our character presentations, with final testament, stuff like that, I feel like we were entering something new and fun, actually, with Miz, who is absolutely wonderful to work with. The best. That guy is just like a fountain of information and knowledge. He helps everyone around him. He’s completely selfless. I loved working with him, but the dynamic of Miz and I being able to, at least for me, show some range instead of just being the brooding, cryptic guy, you never know what he’s talking about until it’s too late, or you never even know what the hell he’s talking about, in general, because some stuff never got paid off. But working with him, and then working with the Wyatts. I feel like now things are starting to connect with people. So January rolls around, we have the conversation about remaining with the company. I feel like we’re kind of like at that time, at our peak in terms of connection and some of our best work, then the whole group is fired, and then we’re just doing backstages. And I wrestle, I think, one time before WrestleMania against AJ, and that was it.”

Scarlett on AJ Styles fighting for them backstage: “They had basically taken me off TV for three months. Yeah, essentially. And then something very strange happened on the European tour. Do you remember that? So there were a few people in locker room that would always fight for us. AJ Styles was one of them. AJ would always fight for us. Miz would always fight for us. Great people. So every single time he had to a backstage, because I know some people noticed why isn’t Scarlett in this? Every single week Kross would ask, ‘Why isn’t Scarlett written into this? She can just be there.’ They said, ‘Oh no, not this week, not this week.’ So a few months went by, AJ is supposed to be in this backstage with us. And he’s like, ‘Doesn’t make sense that you’re not in this.’ And I’m like, Well, that’s what I thought, too. But every week they said no. AJ went to the office, got approved that I could be in it later on, we shoot that. And one of the producers comes up to me and says, How did you sneak yourself in there?”