Bray Wyatt Fought WWE’s Idea For Firefly Funhouse
Bray Wyatt had his ideas for what he wanted the Firefly Funhouse to be and it was different than WWE’s vision at times.
The wrestling world is still mourning the loss of former WWE Champion Bray Wyatt (real name Windham Rotunda), who passed away tragically in August 2023 at just 36 years old.
While Bray Wyatt is no longer with us, his legacy lives on in present-day WWE with the Wyatt Sicks group led by his brother Bo Dallas as the Uncle Howdy character. Dallas is now leading a group of mysterious creatures including Erick Rowan, Joe Gacy, Dexter Lumis and Nikki Cross.
In the spring of 2019, Bray Wyatt introduced the Firefly Funhouse to the WWE Universe with some unique characters appearing on a set with Bray, who played a Mr. Rogers-like character that was happy. As time went on, Bray introduced us to his alter-ego The Fiend, who was an evil character who wore a creepy mask.
Kyle Scarborough is an artist who worked closely with Bray Wyatt in creating The Fiend character and designing outfits used by Bray as well as the characters in the Firefly Funhouse. According to Scarborough in an interview with SOUNDSPHERE MAGAZINE, Bray didn’t want the Firefly Funhouse characters to come to life because they were only supposed to be part of Bray’s imagination.
“Speaking to that direct relationship with him (Windham Rotunda) because the corporate, creative side would come in and say, we’re gonna do X, Y and Z and he would go, oh, he hated it and he would say no so he would task me to design something else. He always wanted to have a counteroffer.”
“If they came at him sideways with stuff, he would say, ‘No, I don’t like that. I wanna do this.’ He was very upset, at the time, about the idea of bringing the Fun House to life. I believe the company or somebody wanted to have an entire stable of people dressed up as the puppets and he was not into it. So, the counter that he made and I spoke to this already but, that’s why that Huskus, almost Leatherface with the big, giant metal spikes piece made it out there. That was something that he requested because his counteroffer was, ‘Well, I will play the characters.’”
“You keep it in that headspace of the Fun House. It’s not a real physical place and if I have to come out or the characters come out, I will play it because it’s all in my head. So I will be these characters come to life. That helps keep it in the mythos that I’ve created. Not, I’ve got five friends with me. That doesn’t make any sense. They wouldn’t be there physically. So, that’s what it was a few years ago.”
Creative Issues Reportedly Led To Bray Wyatt’s WWE Release
Bray Wyatt was released by WWE in July 2021 despite being a main event performer. It was still Vince McMahon running the company and there were reports of issues with the creative team.
After Triple H took over as WWE’s Chief Content Officer in July 2022, he brought back Wyatt a few months later for what ended up being his final run in WWE.