Marc Mero Cites Sable’s Playboy As the Beginning of the End of their Marriage
Marc Mero was recently on The Steve Austin Show and discussed Sable’s appearances in Playboy Magazine leading to their marriage falling apart, hearing Brock Lesnar’s voicemail to Sable, and more. Highlights are below.
On Sable’s reaction to the news that Playboy Magazine wanted her: “When Playboy came to, Vince said to me, he said ‘Hey Marc, Playboy has a really strong offer to have your wife in their magazine.’ I said, ‘No, no, could never do that, I’m a Christian, I couldn’t do that, Vince.’ And so, I remember, I don’t know why she wasn’t with me at the time, she was doing some other TV show or something, I can’t remember. When we came home together, I said, ‘You’re not going to believe this, I got to tell you something, Vince said to me that Playboy would like you to do their magazine.’ She goes, ‘Really?’ I go, ‘Yeah.’ And Steve, as God as my witness, I don’t remember who said it because I’m not throwing her under the bus, it might have even been me that said it, but I just remember, we were sitting at our table, and I remember how stupid I am, and this is why I can be so honest with me now, I look back at my life, what a jabroni, if you look up jabroni there is my picture right next to it, I said or she said, I can’t remember, was, ‘Let’s just do it, God will forgive us.’ OK? So they are not only offering her this huge sum of money, but they’re offering her quarter an issue over their normal sale. So let’s say Playboy sold half a million copies a month for their magazine, and if she did a million copies over that, that’s another $250,000. It becomes the fastest selling Playboy in history. So what do they do? They call me back, because now we’re hooked in with Hugh Hefner, we’re going to the Playboy parties, at the Mansion, the Halloween Extravaganza, Midsummer Night’s Dream, we’re watching movies at Hef’s house, it’s like we’re part of their team, so he calls me, he doesn’t call WWE, he calls me, he goes, ‘We want to do it again.’ So I say, ‘Well, I want seven figures plus a quarter an issue over normal sales.’ They give it to us. Steve, I don’t know if you know this or not, but she did that four times, she did that four times. So now, she’s really raking it in with that.”
On the impact the Playboy Magazine appearances had on their marriage: “I was happy for her but our marriage starts tanking now. See, God does forgive you, but there are consequences to sin. And oh man, did I find them out the hard way. So to make a long story short, she leaves WWE over a lawsuit, I don’t know if you remember this or not, there’s a lawsuit with her and WWE, I left my guaranteed contract, I had three more, I just signed a new contract, I had three years left on my guaranteed contract, I walked away, said forget it, I didn’t want to do this anymore, we had enough money to live the rest of our lives now, or at least I thought.”
On why he didn’t want to stay with WWE: “At that time, we were so vilified. We couldn’t walk in the lunch room without someone making a comment. I look back at that part of my life as the saddest part of my life because of what was going on with her and the company, we were just hated, and I knew it, I had no friends there. The thing was, I always traveled with her, so the camaraderie, in WCW I was hanging out with the boys and doing stuff, going to parties or going out and having a beer after or something. But now I was with my ex, we’d go to bed early, get up and go on the road. I had no camaraderie with nobody, there was no one close to me, and no friends really. But then when that lawsuit happened, it got real bad. The story that goes, when we come back from England, they put poop in her bag, it was one thing after another.
On leaving wrestling and Sable getting into acting: “That final straw was like, who needs this in our life, we have enough money to live the rest of our lives now, let’s just go, she wanted to get into Hollywood and get into acting and stuff like that, so we went and rented a brand new townhouse in Studio City, California, we rented it for one year. So I sent her to California to get into some movies, she did some movies and stuff, and I stayed at home with our daughter, and I’d take care of Mariah while she was trying to get into movies, and it didn’t go real well, not like she was hoping, because we couldn’t use the name Sable anymore, so it was now Rena Mero. It didn’t go well.”
On Sable telling him she wanted to go back to WWE: “She calls me up and she says, ‘Hey Marc, what do you think if I go back to wrestling?’ And Steve, as God as my witness, I was dumbfounded. I go, ‘Are you crazy? First of all, they hate you, Vince would never have you back, are you crazy?’ And she goes, ‘I already talked to him, and he said he’ll think about it.’ Are you kidding me? And that’s how it all started. She had to go apologize to some of the big stars of the company at the time, bunch of names, but she went and did the right thing and she went back and apologized and got Sable back.
On suspecting that Sable was cheating on him, and hearing Brock Lesnar’s voicemail to her: “And now I’m home watching the kid and taking her to school and doing all the stuff a Dad does and she’s on the road, and every night we had this thing where we say goodnight, my daughter and I would say goodnight to her and stuff, and I remember the phone calls started getting less and less. She was tired, she wasn’t around as much, and I was thinking, something’s going on, man, this ain’t right. We were really close too and our marriage just started tanking after that Playboy thing it started going downhill, phone calls got less and less. And I’m going to tell you this, and I make light of this, Steve, when I tell you, the greatest thing in life is forgiveness, there is nothing more that frees you more from any bitterness, resentment, or anger in life than forgiveness, and I have nothing against anyone that has wronged me, I just don’t, because I just don’t live like that. But I will share this story, because it is kind of funny, I shared it once with Jim Ross, one time. I remember thinking, something is going on, she’s got to be seeing someone, ya know? So I remember she didn’t answer the phone one night, so I left, I really cut this promo on her cellphone, and I was like, ‘How could you do this? Not answer your phone? We had an agreement that we’d talk every night, blah blah.’ And I hung up the phone and thought, what a jackass I am, why would I do that? She’s out there trying to earn a living, she’s out there doing something she loves, so I figured I’d call back her phone, I knew her password, we were that close, we knew each other’s passwords, so I thought, let me delete this before she hears it. So I call back her number and punch in the code and it says, ‘You have two unheard messages.’ And I thought, OK, I have to listen to the first one to get to mine. And it was another wrestler talking about them two. And I was like, Steve I tell you, we’ve all been in this position before, where your heart is broken, you can’t sleep, you start sweating, you’re crazy, and I remember thinking, when I find out who this guy is, I’m going to kick the living tar out of this man, and then I find out it was Brock Lesnar. Steve, this gives forgiveness a whole new meaning. The marriage was over, we ended up getting divorced, and God bless them, they got married, they have kids, and they live a happy life.”