Renee Young Recalls Her “Weird” First Meeting With Vince McMahon

Renee Young Recalls Her “Weird” First Meeting With Vince McMahon

It’s not been nearly two months since Renee Young, now going by Renee Paquette, left WWE after several years as a backstage interviewer, commentator, and the nicest person ever.

Renee has appeared on a number of podcasts since her departure, and has discussed why she decided to leave WWE, but she has now spoken about another interesting topic: Vince McMahon.

Renee spoke to the Sunday Night’s Main Event podcast about the first time she met Vince backstage at a show, and you’ll be surprised to hear she thought it was all a bit “weird”.

“The first time I met him – and he would not even remember this. It was very meeting-in-the-hallway, and I shook his hand and whatever. We were in Hershey, Pennsylvania, I was brought in to TV and I got to the building early, as one does when you’re new. I was used to our world of acting auditioning where you show up fresh faced then change and get ready for the show. Then I realized that’s not really the deal, and you should show up looking nice with a full face of makeup on.

“Little me is walking around backstage with a clean face, squeaky clean, and he comes walking down the hallway, and I’m like, ‘Hi!’ And I don’t remember who it was with him, but they said Vince should not see you without makeup on. You should be fully done. He did not react in any poor way or anything, but I remember being like, ‘Oh, I didn’t know that. I thought I came here and I would go into makeup, so why would I already have makeup on?’ It was very weird. He would not remember that, but I just remember that happening and I had not a clue that that was how it’s supposed to work.”

Charming.

She also talked about how difficult it was to commentate with Vince constantly in your ear, telling you what to say, especially when she was commentating on her own husband’s matches and pretending he was a heel.

“We’re talked to throughout the show all the time, whether it’s from a production standpoint or if Vince has ideas. It’s hard to take that direction sometimes, and I never really felt like I had that much of a relationship with Vince. I don’t think he understood me or understood who I was as a personality for him. I think that’s where a lot of the confusion came from was just trying to get on the same page. And being the first woman to do it, everyone was like, ‘I don’t know what to say to her. I don’t know how to make this better.’ It was odd.

“He gets in our ears a lot and gives us lines to say, or different directions that he wants us to go with someone’s character, or words that we say and words that we don’t say. It’s hard to adjust to and get into a rhythm of calling a match sometimes when the shows are going like that… It’s nerve-racking when you have The Undertaker coming out, and you’re like, ‘What the f*** am I supposed to say right now?’ Then trying to call my husband’s matches and he’s a heel – it’s between a rock and a hard place. It was really tough.”

Sounds to me like she’s happy she managed to escape.

Thanks to WrestlingInc. for the transcription.

4 years ago by Andy Datson

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