Real-life break-up began after Triple H soap opera story pitch, ex-WWE personality recalls
Triple H was one of WWE's most featured stars in the late 1990s when the popular Attitude Era began. In a recent interview, former WWE commentator Kevin Kelly revealed he was indirectly responsible for an idea that led to The Game's break-up with fellow wrestler Chyna.
In 1999, Stephanie McMahon was involved in an on-screen romance storyline with Test. The two were supposed to get married on the November 29, 1999, episode of RAW. However, Triple H's character interrupted the ceremony and announced he had already married a drugged Stephanie in Las Vegas.
Kelly said on the Cheap Heat Productions Podcast that his wife mentioned the storyline idea one day while watching a soap opera. Kelly liked the suggestion and pitched it to WWE's higher-ups.
"My wife says, 'In a soap opera, Triple H would find a way to screw over the wedding and interject himself and become married with Stephanie,'" Kelly stated. "So the two of us are laying in bed and we're sort of fleshing this out, and it's like, 'Oh my God, okay,' so the next day I go in and I write up the email. It's the whole thing, blah, blah, blah, 'Stephanie gets dinged somehow, some way, and she's loopy and she doesn't realize that she's marrying Triple H.'" [32:22 – 32:51]
Triple H's four-year relationship with Chyna ended shortly after his on-screen partnership with Stephanie McMahon started. In 2003, WWE's Chief Content Officer married Vince McMahon's daughter in real life.
Why Kevin Kelly kept quiet about his Triple H idea
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Kevin Kelly often traveled with Chyna or WWE Hall of Famers Fabulous Moolah and Mae Young after events.
Kelly added that he never told Chyna, real name Joanie Laurer, he pitched the idea that contributed to the breakdown of her relationship:
"Joanie was a friend of mine and would often ride with me after TV, at least back to the hotel, because I would always have a car, and if Mae or Moolah weren't with me or whatever, generally it would be the makeup lady and Joanie, and I would hear kind of like [whispers] between the two of them, and I didn't know what was going on, but obviously all of this [break-up] was going on, but she had no idea that it was me who launched the idea." [35:24 – 35:55]
Chyna passed away in 2016 at the age of 46. She was posthumously inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2019 as a D-Generation X member.
Please credit the Cheap Heat Productions Podcast and give an H/T to Sportskeeda Wrestling for the transcription if you use quotes from this article.