Bayley addresses the decision for her to turn heel and drop the “hugger” gimmick in 2019

During the first episode of Cody Rhodes’ What Do You Wanna Talk About show, WWE women’s champion Bayley addressed the decision for her to turn heel and drop the “hugger” gimmick in 2019…

“I was more so nervous because I thought, what if it didn’t work? But, I was also in that spot where that character, the fan favorite bubbly baby face wasn’t working either. So it was kind of like I was at a crossroads of, if I never try this then I’ll never know. I always, as a fan, wanted to do everything. I wanna be a good guy, I wanna be a bad guy, I wanna be in a love story, I wanna do the craziest things cause I want all of that experience. I was a little nervous when I first started because I thought I would get a lot of female Cena comments, which is the best compliment I could ever get in that character, but I also was like, I wanna try different things.

So, turning to a bad guy was my decision because I felt that I was going nowhere and the fact that they actually wanted to go with it, it was perfect timing. I cut my hair off and had to go in to see if it was okay. They cut off my whole gimmick and luckily they approved of it and liked it. I just think that is really when, I mean, I had so much fun with that character but being able to embrace myself and my own personality in a real way — and I always try to connect who I really am with my character and it just felt like I was growing as a person inside. Being able to share that with the audience, it just felt like the right time and it was scary, but I think that’s what made it good.” (quote courtesy of Skylar Russell)