Cody Rhodes Felt ‘Dead Inside’ While Portraying Stardust Character In WWE

Cody Rhodes’ return to WWE at WrestleMania 38 was highly anticipated, and his entrance truly entranced fans. Almost a year later, Rhodes has now become one of the biggest stars in the entire company. That being said, Rhodes has no love for his Stardust character. In fact, Rhodes recalled feeling dead inside while portraying the character.

Cody Rhodes made a triumphant return to the ring after injury at the 2023 Men’s Royal Rumble. As the 30th entrant, he mesmerized fans after his confrontation with arch-nemesis Seth Rollins. The American Nightmare’s comeback instantly intensified the match.

In fact, Rhodes ended up winning the match and punched his ticket to WrestleMania. Due to his high level of success right now, fans can’t help but think of how Rhodes used to be viewed when he was Stardust.

While speaking on After The Bell with Corey Graves, Cody Rhodes talked about his time portraying Stardust. Rhodes admitted that he felt absolutely dead inside when he was Stardust.

“Here’s his full story. I’m at the TV hotel. It’s a smaller market. We’re at a Best Western, which was the TV hotel shockingly, and I’m not knocking our Best Westerns out there people, but anyways, I’m at this Best Western and I’m sitting in a rental car with Brandi. It’s freezing because we were in Scranton. It’s freezing, freezing. We were outside and the crew bus was right in front of us. It had The Rock and it had the John Cena photo on it from the second Mania. So we’ve already seen this bus for over a year now. This story was encompassing really two years, this story from John versus Rock, the saga, and it was wonderful. But when you’re on the card, not close to that and at my level, I had been chipping away a little bit. Brass rings here and there. Brass rings here and there, but I hadn’t broken through by any means. I just got so tired of seeing their dang faces, and I love John. He was my role model in the business. He’s a rental car guy with me until he got a bus. As much as I did, I just was getting so upset and I told her that I can’t keep looking at the same guys. I can’t.”

“I got out of the car and I threw a Yoohoo glass bottle up against beautiful Dwayne Johnson’s face. There might have been somebody sleeping on this crew bus for all I knew. It shattered everywhere and I just stared at him, like I wanted to fight this giant head on the side of this bus. I remember telling her, you marry a wrestler, you’re marrying wrestling. As bad as this is, this is part of it. I gotta get this out, and getting it out for me ultimately would lead to me leaving was the only way I could get it out. It was pent-up. It was pent-up for too long.

You know, today you’ve got a medical team at WWE that includes mental health services. I’m not saying that I was deep down the rabbit hole, but it’s still so helpful to talk to somebody. You never want to lower yourself in front of your beloved, in front of your wife. That was one of the hardest things for me was being Stardust in front of Brandi. That was rough. When Brandi married Cody Rhodes, he was the Intercontinental Champion. He was wrestling Randy Orton every night and we were absolutely tearing the joints down. Next thing you know, I’m running around in this space outfit and trying to make the best of it, but I was very dead inside.”

“We were right near a critical mass because I remember the next conversation was, here’s what needs to happen, and what I said what needs to happen next, everyone told me not to do, but gotta bet on ourselves wherever we are and I needed to then.”

The company is also pumping out tons of merchandise for him, and some of it will center around his recent pectoral injury. He will challenge Roman Reigns for the Undisputed Universal Titles at WrestleMania 39, so we’ll have to see if Rhodes will win the match in the end.

What’s your take on this story? Sound off in the comments!