Darren Young Reflect On An Awkward Experience With Mark Henry Prior To Coming Out

Darren was the first openly gay WWE Superstar in history and it took him a while before he finally felt comfortable with announcing it to his fellow colleagues in WWE. The reaction for Young was one of overwhelming support.

In an interview with Sportskeeda, Darren Young reflected on an awkward situation with WWE Hall of Famer Mark Henry that occurred before his public coming out:

“When I came out, I was very fearful. Fearful of the unknown, fearful of losing my job, but when guys like Randy Orton, Mark Henry, Big Show, Titus O’Neil, Sheamus – when those guys embrace you… CM Punk also, of all people, when they embrace you with open arms, it makes it that much easier for me to walk into a locker room, it makes it much easier for me to go out there and wow the crowd and perform.

“It was Mark Henry, years ago, before I came out, he kind of outed me a little bit. I just came up onto the main roster from NXT1, the original NXT, and, at the time, I had this gold sequence around my hair, and my hair was spiky. I felt like I was looking fly, flash and fabulous, but Mark Henry in the locker room said, “Why do you got your hair like that, boy? It makes you look gay.” I was just like, blown away. I said, “Mark, I’m just trying to look different, I’m trying to stand out.

“Fast forward to when I came out publicly like I said, he was one of the first guys to embrace me and then he was like, “Boy, how come you didn’t tell me? How come you didn’t tell me?” I said, “Mark, man, I was fearful of the unknown, man.”