I guess the fact is that while I might have been performing in front of twenty thousand people and millions more on television, I was looking for the approval of only one person. And as time went on I realized I needed to step out of my father’s boots and go out on my own. There’s never been a day when I haven’t been proud of the Rhodes name and the family legacy established by my father.
But I needed to breathe a little in a space I created.
FOUR
THE LONG GOODBYE
It wasn’t long after I started thinking about the weight of my father’s shadow that my life took a turn. I guess that’s how it works, but I never saw it coming.
I met my first wife, Terri, at WCW. She was a makeup artist for CNN. I was attracted to Terri the first time I laid eyes on her. We finally got together in Phoenix, where I was in town for a show. I had gone golfing during that day and I returned to the hotel and headed down to the bar to have a drink with my dad, which was ironic, given everything that followed.
Terri was in the bar with Dad and others, and she was the hottest woman I had ever seen. She was so damn sexy that I couldn’t keep my eyes off her. Even to this day I can’t pinpoint exactly what it was that attracted me to her. She was beautiful, but there was that extra something about Terri. We talked and drank all night at the bar. I was on my best behavior, being respectful and as nice as possible. I was smitten, that’s for sure. When the night started winding down and it was time for her to go up to her room, I walked her up. I had every desire, but no intention of sleeping with her that night. Not that I was necessarily in control of that decision. I helped her into bed, covered her up, and went on my way.
The strategy worked to perfection. The next day she thought I had been a complete gentleman, which of course was true. That’s when it all started between us. Initially, we were seeing one another behind everyone’s back, trying to keep it quiet. We both had careers and it just seemed keeping things quiet was the right approach. Eventually we became very involved and moved in together. After about six months, I took Terri to Austin to meet my mother. At that point I still didn’t think my dad knew about our relationship. I was just going about my business, doing my job and spending more and more time with Terri. But no secret lasts very long in the world we were in.
On the way back home from Texas and that time with my mother, I received a page in the airport. We were fixing to get on the plane and head back home when I heard my name. Anyone who’s ever flown knows the message: Pick up the nearest courtesy phone. I walked over, picked up the phone, and it was my dad. He started right in telling me all kinds of things about Terri. I was caught completely off guard because I didn’t think he knew about us, much less anything about Terri personally. He had been fine around her at the bar in Phoenix, and as far as I knew he didn’t have an opinion about her one way or another.
“Do you know where she’s been?” he asked. It went downhill from there. “You need to get home, straighten out, and think right.” The conversation didn’t last long, but my father, as always, got my attention. I didn’t know whom I was angrier with, Terri or my dad. I hung up the phone, walked onto the plane, and started taking it out on Terri. I blamed her for every bit of anger I felt, for having to endure a lecture from my father. I was so mean that I made her cry all the way home.
But it wasn’t her fault. It didn’t take much for my insecurities to come out, especially when my father was involved. I loved Terri and I loved my father. He didn’t make it an ultimatum or anything like that, and I’m sure he was just looking out for his son. As time went on he mentioned a couple other things to me about Terri, but I just blew them off. As far as I was concerned, it was my life and he was going to have to deal with it.
Over time, my dad became more accepting, but every time he said something negative about Terri, it touched a nerve with me. Finally, we got to the point that we’d go to family outings together. She didn’t like to go because there was always an uncomfortable feeling in the air. She’d show up with me, and my father seemed to come around to the fact that she wasn’t going away.
When Terri became pregnant with our daughter, Dakota, we got married and everything was fine. I was still working at WCW, and my dad was still there, too. Life was about as normal as you could expect. Dakota was like a gift from heaven, a little girl beautiful in ways I couldn’t have imaged before she was born.
One day, my dad called and asked me to play golf. He lived about an hour away from us in Marietta, Georgia. We agreed to meet at a little store in a strip mall not far from our house.
Just as I hung up the phone, Terri told me she wasn’t feeling well. We had this little baby who needed to be taken of and Terri was so sick that she wanted me to cancel the golf outing.
“Please don’t go today,” she said. “I’m really sick, Dustin. I need your help with the baby. I need you here today.”
What could I do? I knew my father wouldn’t be happy, but given the circumstances I figured he’d at least understand. Hell, he had kids. He knew that the unexpected happened. I went out into the car and drove up to the store where we were supposed to meet. I told him I couldn’t play and that Terri was at home sick. Those two facts pushed him over the edge. He was upset that he had driven an hour for nothing. And I’m sure the fact Terri was involved only made him angrier. It didn’t end well, to say the least. Maybe he felt like I picked Terri over him. I don’t know. But that was the last time I spoke to him for five years.
I have no idea how the door just slams shut between two people like that. Yet it’s ironic in a way. All the pain I felt from our estrangement led to some of my greatest professional success. Maybe I needed that distance. I don’t know, but it was a tough time for both of us.
Dakota remained in my father’s life, but he and my stepmother were barely able to see her from that point. I didn’t speak to him and I didn’t see him, which might be remarkable given the business we were in. Before long, the weight of it all became too heavy for me to control. Soon after, I started going to therapy hoping to find a way to deal with the situation. In fact, Terri and I were both going. I spent all this money trying to find a way around the pain, but nothing helped. My dad called our place a couple times when I was out, and he talked to Terri. Small talk mostly. Why couldn’t he call me? Why should I have to pick up the phone and call him? He was the one who stormed off and slammed the door on our relationship. I was supposed to make the first move because he’s my dad? Out of respect? Where was his respect for his son? This was my wife, the mother of my daughter, and because there was a problem I couldn’t play golf. Big deal.
This went on for five long, hard, and very tumultuous years with great highs and even greater lows. It was the hardest time of my life emotionally and psychologically. That’s when I started getting deeper into the use of prescription painkillers and alcohol.
With my lifestyle, one injury can lead to another. I have an addictive personality and I was a mess emotionally—a volatile mix for someone like me. Add in the burden of trying to get out from under my father’s shadow, and I was not in a good place.
I’d take the painkillers and then drink alcohol to medicate myself to get away from it all. The distance from my father was destroying me mentally, and to one degree or another it was contributing to me destroying myself physically. Terri would tell me I needed to call my father because she could see how his absence from my life was tearing me apart. Every time she mentioned my father, or talked about what I should do to repair the relationship, I exploded. I didn’t have the tools to deal with the situation. All my insecurities were on hyperalert, and it was like I was paralyzed by anxiety.
More than once, Terri told me to grab a pen and a piece of paper so she could tell me what to say to my dad over the phone. I’d write it all down. Should I tell him that I’d meet him halfway? My dad has always been intimidating. Hell, he’s still intimidating. I didn’t have any idea what was going on in his mind, so mine ran wild.
After a couple mon
ths, I finally got myself to the point where I could pick up the phone and call him. I told him not to say a word, just to listen. I told him the way it was with Terri and me, and if he wanted to meet me halfway to discuss this, or fight me, then I’d meet him halfway. Then I just hung up. Click. From that point on, we didn’t communicate. He was very receptive, but . . . I don’t know. I could tell that he was really sad on the other end of that call.
I had always wanted nothing more than to be a part of my dad’s life, to make him proud and earn his approval. Then, in a moment I never saw coming, he disappeared. He was gone, out of my life all over again. As time went on, there didn’t seem to be any hope of ever bridging the gap between us. It led to me becoming verbally abusive with Terri because I didn’t have the tools or the emotional maturity to see myself through all the pain. Terri and I started down the road to divorce at about the five-year mark of an eight-year marriage.
The next cut hurt less, at least physically. I was fired by the WCW for blading. I knew it was against WCW rules. It was in the script and I actually questioned whether or not we could do it on the bus ride to a shoot. I told the head producer, “For whatever reason, WCW boss Eric Bischoff doesn’t want us to blade. We need to get this approved from up above.” I didn’t want to blade because I knew the consequences. Sure enough, the producer told us we had approval from the higher-ups. I still wasn’t comfortable, but what the hell. I didn’t have a problem with blading. I just didn’t want to get fired for it.
The shoot took place in north Georgia. I drove up from where I lived, south of Atlanta. There were two tour buses parked on this farm where Barry Darsow and I dressed and prepared for the shoot. And there was an eighteen-wheeler that had been outfitted with a giant cage on the bed. The setup was elaborate. Inside the cage were small cameras to film the fight. There were weapons—farm tools—that we used to beat up one another. At the very far end of the trailer was a post with a bell on it. One of us had to climb up the side of the cage to get to the post. Whoever rang the bell first won the match. All of this happened while the truck was driving down the road. This was a Blacktop Bully match and that was the rationale for having an eighteen-wheeler involved. The cops shut down a couple miles of the road, and off we went.
It took us twenty or twenty-five minutes to shoot the whole thing. We were throwing one another against the cage, grabbing the weapons and anything we could get our hands on to use on one another. About halfway through the match, we started blading. Meanwhile the truck was driving down the road with two four-wheel-drive trucks on either side with cameras. The cage was pretty strong. It wasn’t like we were going to fall off anything, but there were some curves. When we saw a curve coming up, we’d fall hard into the turn. Most of what we did in that match was done on the fly because we didn’t get a chance to drive the road before the shoot. It ended with us returning to the farmhouse. I chased Barry out of the truck and tackled him in a ditch. We were fighting covered in mud. It was fun and I felt really good about the shoot. That’s why what happened the next day was such a shock. I didn’t see it coming. None of us saw it coming.
Mike Graham, who was an agent, and I drove back to Atlanta together. It was just another routine day at the office. The next day, Mike called and said they had let him go. “Be prepared, Dustin, because you’re probably going to get a call, too.” Sure enough, the call came.
There were a lot of people coming into the company at the time, some of them with huge salaries. I’ve always thought they trumped up the whole thing so they could move some money around and take care of some other people.
I never would have done something that I knew to be against company policy. I’m a businessman first. I told Eric, “I did what I was told to do.” I brought up the fact that our booking sheets made clear we were supposed to follow any directions by the agents. I told him a call had been made, but Eric didn’t bend.
“We’ve got to let you go, Dustin.”
I was making a good salary at the time. I could have taken legal action, but that would have cost me time and money. I didn’t know what I was doing one way or another at that point, so I just let it set. As it turned out, that was the best decision I could have made because Eric took care of me down the road.
In that moment nothing about the future mattered. My life was starting to spin a little faster than I could control.
But against all odds and reason, the best time of my career was right around the corner.
FIVE
THE MAIN EVENT
The demons were circling. I knew I hadn’t done anything wrong. It came out of the blue, just like the fallout with my dad, with no warning. I couldn’t have imagined being let go, because wrestling was the one thing holding my life together.
Meanwhile, I was home living off what I had in the bank, which wasn’t much. There were constant household issues around paying the bills. I was taking more and more pills trying to dull the pain of everything swirling around in my head. I had no idea what the future held, but I had no thought of going out and getting a regular job.
I’m an entertainer. Even when I retire I want to stay connected to wrestling. I definitely want to help the up-and-coming future stars, something—anything—to stay connected.
I had been out of work for about eight months when Vince McMahon called me.
“Dustin, are you sitting down?”
“Yes, sir.”
I was excited and nervous at the same time because Vince is very intimidating. Vince and Bruce Prichard were both on the line. Bruce was a former commentator who went by the name Brother Love and he was part of Vince’s brain trust at the time. Vince said, “I’ve got this character I want to run by you. His name is Goldust.” Bruce kind of filled in the blanks. They said Goldust was an androgynous character. I knew what that meant, even though they never said, or even implied, that Goldust was gay. To this day, they have never used that word in reference to Goldust. They just called him a bizarre, androgynous character.
When they finished I thought, “Oh, my God, what is this?”
After the call, I thought about the whole idea and realized Goldust could be the way for me to step out of my father’s shoes and forever move myself out from under his shadow. This was a chance to do something on my own, and I knew it was going to make him angry all over again. That fact pushed me toward Goldust even more because we weren’t in a good place and I didn’t really give a damn at that point. Mostly, I wanted to do something outside the Rhodes name. I love that name. It’s my heritage and my family, but I wanted to do something that was mine alone.
The more Vince explained the character, the more attracted to the idea I became. I’ve always been fascinated with paint. Basically, I would look like a gold statue, like an Oscar with some bizarre things painted onto my face. At the very beginning, it was just a gold-painted face with two black-painted eyes and ears. Nothing else. Vince brought me up to Stamford several times to talk about the character. He said, “We want to make you a heel, a bad guy.” I’d never been a bad guy. In all my years of working to that point, I’d always been a babyface, a good guy. The idea of becoming a heel was kind of nerve-racking because I knew I had a lot to learn. But Vince put me on the road right away.
The rift in my relationship with my father was going on at the same time I was about to do a character that was 180 degrees from my father’s personality. I’m pretty sure that even if we had been talking at that time, I would have agreed to do Goldust because the weight of my father’s shadow was becoming so heavy for me. Having to live up to his expectations probably would have eventually led me to do something as crazy as Goldust.
I heard through the grapevine that he hated the character, which wasn’t surprising. I would dress up as certain people, and one time I dressed up like my father in polka dots. I’m sure that touched a nerve on a couple fronts. My dad had always been part of the competition prior to going to work for Vince the first time. He needed the work and Vince brought him into what was World Wrestlin
g Federation. The polka dots were Vince’s idea, and my dad always thought it was an attempt to make fun of him. The idea was that my dad was the common man, a blue-collar kind of guy. Until that time, Pops had always been the boss. He had been at WCW when the two companies were fighting it out. I know it was hard for my dad to go to work for Vince, but he didn’t have many choices at that time. He was Dusty Rhodes, but he wasn’t the American Dream. They put Sapphire with him. I don’t know whether everyone at World Wrestling Federation thought the whole deal with the polka-dot shirts and tights was funny, or whether it was a not-so-subtle jab at my dad. But my dad got over just like he always did. That’s around the time I started the angle with Ted DiBiase and Randy “Macho Man” Savage, which also turned out to be Vince’s first look at me.
I did all my dad’s mannerisms as Goldust and then did an interview where I pretty much berated my father. That was a low blow. But I didn’t really care at that point. I was just trying to play a character and entertain. The pain of our estrangement was so intense that it was almost kind of a distraction for me. This character was larger than life. I was making money and I was proud of myself for doing something on my own outside of the Rhodes name.
Cross Rhodes: Goldust, Out of the Darkness (WWE) Page 4