Peyton Royce and Billie Kay were released by WWE in April. The IIconics have since gone on to start their own podcast and trademark a potential new name.
On a recent episode of their Off Her Chops podcast, Royce recounted an awkward conversation with Vince McMahon late last year that may have contributed to his decision to release her. She explained to Billie Kay that she tried pitching an idea to McMahon, but it didn’t go well at all:
“This was when you had been drafted to Smackdown, and I decided to put on my big girl panties and go talk to Vince. Like, I had in my head what I knew I wanted to say, but he brushed it off very quickly, and then I was like, ‘Oh crap, I got nothing else’. This was my idea that I wanted to present, and he wanted to discuss other ideas. But I didn’t have other ideas. This was the one I wanted to talk about that I put my time and effort into.
And he says to me like, “What do you do for fun?” Me being me, the introvert, the homebody that I am, I had to let him know that I just like to sit on the couch with my dogs and watch TV. And he just stared at me.
And so in my head I’m like, ‘Just make something up, make something up.’ Couldn’t make anything up, nothing was coming out. ‘Cause I’m not a liar. So I didn’t want to lie to the man. I feel like he probably could have seen right through that. And I basically said to him like, ‘I’m really sorry, I’m boring. I like to just be at home on my off days.’
But yeah, I didn’t contribute any more to that conversation unfortunately. That’s probably why I lost the job.”
I’m someone who embraces the kind of boredom that Royce references above, and there’s nothing wrong with enjoying some quiet alone time when you are not at work. But Vince McMahon is in the business of selling over-the-top personalities, so telling him that you’re boring is probably not a great career choice.
What do you make of Peyton’s awkward conversation with Vince?