Summary
- Sarah Michelle Gellar's decision to work with Dwayne Johnson caused a rift in Freddie Prinze Jr.'s family, as his grandmother felt betrayed.
- Freddie Prinze Jr. started working for the WWE after a meeting with Stephanie McMahon and impressing her with his knowledge of wrestling.
- Prinze Jr.'s grandmother's resentment towards Dwayne Johnson carried over to Sarah Michelle Gellar when they worked together in the movie Southland Tales, which was a commercial failure.
After starring in I Know What You Did Last Summer, Sarah Michelle Gellar and Freddie Prinze Jr. have gone on to lead exceptional lives. Married for more than two decades, Prinze Jr. and Gellar still seem to be very happy today from the outside looking in.
Sadly for them, however, Dwayne Johnson once caused a rift in their family, and it didn't have anything to do with jealousy over his massive fortune. Instead, Prinze Jr.'s grandmother felt betrayed by Gellar because she chose to work with Johnson.
How Did Freddie Prinze Jr. Start Working For The WWE?
Between 2008 and 2009 and then from 2010 until 2012, Freddie Prinze Jr. was employed by the WWE. Since Prinze Jr. had previously been a successful actor, many of his longtime fans wonder how that came to be.
In 2021, Prinze Jr. revealed how he started working for the WWE during a podcast. As it turns out, Prinze Jr. had become disillusioned with acting when he went to a Wrestlemania. While at the event, a company employee was so impressed by what Prinze Jr. said about wrestling that they introduced him to Stephanie McMahon.
During his meeting with Stephanie McMahon, Prinze Jr. impressed her enough that she insisted that he needed to go see Vince McMahon.
"So I go and I sit with Stephanie. We start talking wrestling, and characters, and characters who maybe seen stale or couldn’t get over. They would challenge you with, ‘Well, how would you get this character over’ and and really just on the spot kind of thinking. So you have to be quick and fast. My improv skills are good."
When Prinze Jr. met with Vince McMahon, the WWE boss offered him a job. According to Prinze Jr., he accepted the job offer without even speaking to his wife Sarah Michelle Gellar first.
"Not growing up with a father, I’m a sucker for him, I want to please my boss. I want to please people that I looked up to when I was younger. It’s just something anyone without a father or mother can relate to, so I’m sitting in there and he calls me son."
"He says ‘Well, I think we could really use you son’, and he puts out his hand and I’m like, in my head I’m like, wait, hold up I didn’t even see a contract and this guy is putting out the let’s make a deal hand. But because he said son, that’s kryptonite. And he did it to me twice. He got me to come back with the same technique. I shake the man’s hand. I hadn’t even spoken to my wife yet. She was in L.A. He said, ‘Ok, we’ll send whatever we need to your people and you will start next week.’”
Why Did Dwayne Johnson Come Between Sarah Michelle Gellar And Dwayne Johnson's Family?
Now that Dwayne Johnson has been one of the biggest stars in the world for years, many fans know a lot about him. A perfect example of that is most movie fans know that before Johnson took Hollywood by storm, he was a professional wrestler for years.
While it is common knowledge that Johnson was a professional wrestler, a lot of film fans don't know much about his WWE career. A perfect example of that is many moviegoers don't know that there was a time when Johnson was one of the most hated wrestlers in the business.
After his character turned his back on WWE fans, The Rock became known as the corporate champion. With the WWE's biggest villain, Vince McMahon, by his side, The Rock spent months feuding with wrestling's most beloved hero at the time, "Stone Cold" Steve Austin.
After The Rock and Steve Austin feuded for a long time, Johnson's character would go on to be a hero at times and a villain at others. Despite The Rock being a hero at times, the fact that he opposed Steve Austin caused some wrestling fans to always resent him.
After working for the WWE, Freddie Prinze Jr. has gone on to be part of the wrestling industry on his own terms. A perfect example of the fact that Prinze Jr. is still dedicated to the business is that he has been making plans to create his own wrestling company.
Before his planned wrestling company gets off the floor, Prinze Jr. has already been busy making wrestling part of his career. Since November 2021, Prinze Jr. has been hosting a highly successful podcast about the business called "Wrestling with Freddie".
At the time that Prinze Jr. was launching his podcast, he made the media rounds to promote it. As a part of that process, Prinze Jr. spoke to People about the podcast and the wrestling business as a whole.
During his conversation with People, Prinze Jr. revealed that The Rock once came between his family. The reason for that is Prinze Jr.'s grandmother was a passionate wrestling fan who never forgave The Rock for his villainous ways which made her hate Johnson.
When Prinze Jr.'s wife Sarah Michelle Gellar agreed to star in a movie with Johnson, that became a problem. In fact, Prinze Jr. told people that his grandmother was furious at Gellar for her decision to work with Johnson.
"I remember my wife did a movie with Dwayne Johnson, and Dwayne's [WWE] character, the Rock, turned his back on the people and he became what was known as the corporate champion, and all the fans hated him for it."
Prinze Jr. continued, "And when my grandma found out that Sarah was doing a movie with him, she got pissed off at my wife for siding with the corporation and not the people She was genuinely upset and genuinely mad at her, I think till the day she died. But that's how serious [she] took it."
For most moviegoers, the film that Johnson and Gellar made together won't ring a bell. The reason for that is the pair co-starred in Southland Tales together and that movie completely flopped which means that most people never saw it.
According to IMDb, Southland Tales was produced for $17 million. Since many movies these days cost hundreds of millions to produce, Southland Tales was relatively cheap to produce but it still lost a lot of money. Almost completely ignored by moviegoers, Southland Tales only brought in $374,743 at the box office according to IMDb.
More than a decade after Southland Tales was released, Johnson responded to an article about the film's release. In his tweet, Johnson completely agreed that the movie's premiere was disastrous. "Disastrous is an understatement. I’m grateful for the few hard-earned career lessons I learned in Cannes in 2006."
Even if Southland Tales was a huge success, Sarah Michelle Gellar may have regretted starring in it since Prinze Jr.'s grandmother never forgave her for it. That said, the fact that Southland Tales was such a huge flop makes the whole situation even worse.
