Kofi Kingston On Being Outed For His Jamaican Accent

Kofi Kingston debuted in WWE as a high-flying Jamaican superstar. As part of his character at the time,  Kington wore Jamaican colors to the ring and spoke in a Jamaican accent.

During an interview with the Reps Podcast, Kingston shared what it was like to consistently use the accent and how great he felt when he finally dropped it.

"I was so happy to be able to drop the accent. Initially Vince [McMahon] told me that all my interviews had to be in Jamaican. Any time I was on screen or being interviewed by anybody about anything it had to be in Jamaican. The WWE magazine would call up and it would just be a regular number and I would say 'Oh hello?' and they would say 'Hi this is Megan from the magazine calling, is Kofi there?' and I would say 'Oh hold on' and then answer in Jamaican.

It was really annoying. The only other person that could identify with me was Santino [Marella]. He had to put on his Italian accent so we would have these conversations."

Kofi also spoke about an interview he had with The BBC during that time and how he had to try and stay in kayfabe to protect the gimmick.

"Eventually I had an interview with someone at the BBC and they kept pressing me about the fact that Kofi is not a Jamaican name. They said, 'why are you playing this Jamaican character and I'm just coming up with all these different answers.

So finally I get off the phone and I'm sweating and I'm like it's over. Then all of a sudden maybe an hour later my mom calls me up and says 'Somebody from the BBC just called and they asked me about your Jamaican heritage and I told them you were from Ghana and this' and I was like 'NOOO Mom Kayfabe Kayfabe!'. Eventually I told Vince about it and he said not as many people are going to read that article as you think, and then in a year I ended up being able to drop it."

The promo where I had Triple H on my team and I tried to get everybody on the team on the same page and Triple H calls me out and says 'Hey, aren't you supposed to be Jamaican?' And then I wasn't Jamaican anymore."