Pro wrestling loves a good redemption story, but such things take on an entirely new power when they transform into true, internal change away from the ring. Such was the case for Scorpio Sky, according to the All Elite Wrestling star.
The newly minted AEW tag team champion rightfully faced ridicule after using homophobic slurs on Twitter back in 2011, an admittedly “dark time” in his 17-year career. Sky made strides to understand his errors and correct himself on a personal level in the time since his misstep, and he delved into that experience in a recent interview with Chris Van Vliet.
“I had some bad decisions that I made where I said some things on Twitter that I shouldn’t have said that were very, very inappropriate and ignorant, actually, and it came off as homophobic, and that’s a very down point of my career, something I look back on with a lot of regret and at the same time though, I learned a lot from it and I definitely can look back, here we are, this is almost going on ten years later.
“I’ve learned a lot from it and I’m definitely a different person now than I was then, and I learned that there is certain language that is completely unacceptable and not only in the public eye, but in your personal life as well, and so, it’s a situation that I’m very embarrassed about and I look back with a lot of regret but at the same time, I learned from it and became a better person and a more understanding person.”
Sky’s tweets resurfaced earlier this year after AEW announced the signings of LGBTQ wrestlers Nyla Rose and Sonny Kiss. Fans brought the tweets to the attention of Rose and Kiss, which drove Sky to confront the situation head-on, and assure the two that he had changed since that low point in 2011.
“There was a situation where not too long after we signed with AEW, someone tweeted at Nyla Rose and Sonny Kiss, and they said, ‘How do you feel about having this guy in the company’ and, you know, I don’t care if someone takes a shot at me, but to try and make someone else feel uncomfortable, I thought was kind of a real low shot.
“So I reached out to them. I didn’t really know them that well at the time but I reached out to them. I said, ‘Hey, I had some things that I said almost ten years ago that I’m very embarrassed about and it was very ignorant and very inappropriate and I’m a different person today than I was then and I never want you to feel uncomfortable around me and we can always talk’, and they couldn’t have been more understanding and open and in my corner and to this day, the three of us are just great close friends.”
The So Cal Uncensored stalwart went on to stress that the changes he made after his offensive remarks were not made just for the public eye, but more so an internal change in himself, both publicly and privately. Sky also compared the prejudices faced by the LGBTQ community to those faced by the black community.
“It’s been almost 10 years and, you know, I can’t say it enough: I’m a different person. I look back at those tweets. I embarrassed myself. I embarrassed my family. It’s one of those things where I’m going to have to live with it for the rest of my life. I’m going to look back when I’m 70 years old, the same way I do now, and think ‘what an idiot.’ Not an idiot for saying it publicly, but an idiot for just saying it… that is wrong in itself. That’s something you just definitely can’t do.
“There’s so much pain and anguish behind that word, and people that have really suffered the same way that my people have suffered. I like to think about is as we are all human beings and if your people suffered and my people suffered and we’re all in this together. Life is hard enough. We don’t need to make it harder on each other.”
Outsports reached out to Nyla Rose and Sonny Kiss for their reaction to Scorpio Sky’s new comments. Although we did not hear back from Nyla as of press time, here’s Sonny’s response, sent via DM on Twitter:
“I absolutely love Scorpio Sky! We have all had times in our lives where we have said or did things that we regret or are not proud of. The fact that he is owning up to his wrongdoings and have addressed them publicly says a lot about the type of person he is. We live in a very unforgiving world, but I am a firm believer that everyone can change and do better. If they are willing to, let them. I will never continue to penalize a person who has expressed regret and has a desire to be better!”
