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Seth Rollins Reveals What Happened When Becky Lynch Made Their Relationship Public | SI Media Podcast
WWE Universal champion, Seth Rollins opened up about being the Man's Man on the latest episode of the Sports Illustrated Media Podcast hosted by Jimmy Traina.
After passionately responding to critics of the WWE's recent product, including his friend, Dean Amborse/Jon Moxley at the start of the podcast, Rollins talked about dating the WWE's women's champion, Becky Lynch.
With the couple now becoming part of WWE TV and storylines, Rollins talked about if he had any second thoughts about using their relationship on the shows. He also revealed what happened when Lynch, unbeknownst to him, made their relationship public via Twitter.
Listen to Seth Rollins on the SI Media podcast here and subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, Spotify or Google Play. The following transcript has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Jimmy Traina: Do you have any trepidation about bringing the real-life relationship on the show? Did you have to approve using your real-life relationship on TV?
Seth Rollins: When you're first approached about the idea, you're like, "Ehh, I don't know how this is going to work. Is it going to work?" I've never done anything like that. I don't think she has either, as far as I know. If you look at the way couples have been portrayed in the past, sometimes it's a bit sketchy, especially on the woman's end. I know some of her concerns about that and mine as well, so we had discussions, but once we sat down and brainstormed about it -- because at the end of the day, they're not gonna go forward with the idea if it's not something we're comfortable with -- so once we sat down and brainstormed to talk about how cool it might be and the options that were in front of us on the table, I think that we decided it would actually be a pretty fun thing to do and a cool thing to do and to strike while the iron is hot. It's not like this would be as cool if we did it in a year from now -- that's assuming I'm lucky enough to keep her for a full year. I think watching [Sunday] night and me being in the ring during the main event of the [Stomping Grounds] pay-per-view and hearing the reaction when she hit the ring and seeing the reaction on social [the next day], everyone seems to be pretty psyched about the role reversal thing. It's pretty sick to me. I think we nailed it and I'm pretty happy with it and so is she.
JT: You guys dated for a while before it became public. Did you have to be sneaky about it?
Rollins: We started dating in February. It was a couple of months. We didn't really keep it a secret that much. We were in public, went to some concerts and took pictures. We were friends for years beforehand, so I think people were like, "Well, I don't know." It's not like we hadn't taken pictures at the gym or elsewhere before, so I think people were just like, "Maybe they're just friends or whatever." We're like, "Yeah, we're just friends."
We started seeing each other in February. I don't think we let the cat out of the bag until April or May. But it wasn't like we were taking extreme measures. She wasn't walking around with a mustache or anything like that. We did what we did. And eventually she put the thing on Twitter when she was arguing with Beth and Edge and I was like, "Hey, I had this picture for safe keeping." So I popped it up there and that was it. There wasn't too much thought put into it.
JT: Did you know she was going to go public with the relationship when she did?
Rollins: No, I did not. We were riding in a car together to a live event when she was going back and forth with the two of them and I was scanning my Twitter and rolling my eyes -- you know how she is with the Twitter machine -- and so I'm rolling my eyes at some of these comments and then all of a sudden I saw that one pop up and I just looked over at her and I was like, "Huh? What are you...? Huh? What is this?" And she just gave me that little coy smile that she does and then I surprised her the next day with the picture, so that went well.
