In an interview with Chris Van Vliet, Jackie Redmond was asked about interviewing Triple H at the WrestleMania 40 press conference.
Recounting what led to the interview with the chief content officer, Redmond noted that she didn’t know she was interviewing Triple H until “eight minutes before”:
So we’re getting close to the end of this presser, and a producer comes up to me and is like, ‘Hey, we weren’t planning for this, but some s–t is about to go down, and I think we need to hear from Hunter after this. We need him to give us something to kind of put a cap on everything that’s going on.’
So okay, that’s no problem. ‘So just pay attention. As soon as it’s done, he’s gonna come out of Gorilla, and he knows he’s gonna chat with you to get this instant live reaction from the craziness that just happened.’
The backstage reporter adds that despite knowing that “99 [percent]” of wrestling interviews are typically interrupted, she was caught off guard by the arrival of The Rock, along with the verbal barbs between the two former WWE Champions that followed:
People do not believe me to this day, that I did not know The Rock was gonna do that. I did not know, hand to God did not know that that was gonna happen. And so when it did, that was a very real reaction from me. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.
I felt like I was teleported back to being 10 years old, it’s the Attitude Era and The Rock and Triple H are yelling at each other. What is going on? It was a very surreal, surreal moment for me. I don’t say that a lot, like that was one where I was like is this my life right now?
Elsewhere in the interview, Redmond talks about her road to WWE and the transition from covering hockey to pro wrestling.