Interview: Jeff Hardy on Face Paint Origin & Design Process, Current Career

A recent episode of the In This Corner Podcast had Jeff Hardy as the guest and some of the topics discussed included the origin of his face paint, his current career in WWE, and the lengthy makeup process for his face paint designs.

On the topic of the origin of his face paint usage, Hardy stated both Sting and The Ultimate Warrior were the inspiration for wanting to wear face paint for his matches.

“I was a combination of Sting and the Ultimate Warrior. Sting at the time was in NWA, or when it became WCW, and the Warrior was in WWE. The Warrior was crazy but Sting’s would be different every night when he was the blonde haired Sting, and that’s what I loved about him I was like ‘How does he come up with these ideas?’ And I saw him one night in Fayetteville, North Carolina and the music came on and I reached out and touched him on the shoulder and I’ll never forget feeling… like I want to make somebody feel like he made me feel. Here I am, hopefully, having the same influence on young, up-and-coming, wannabe wrestlers.”

On the topic of the makeup process for his face paint designs, Hardy stated it takes around 45 minutes to complete the makeup for a design and the eyes design came from a random idea he had one night.

“I did it in a YouTube video years ago. I thought to myself, ‘I should do this when I come out to the ring.’ I had this vision and then I started doing it in TNA years ago and I was working my butt off every night. Doing an Instagram picture would be different every night. So to be here in WWE doing it now it’s very surreal to me, and that people are actually digging it, it’s only going to get better.”

On the topic of his current career in WWE, Hardy stated it has been a lot of work adapting his Brother Nero persona from Impact Wrestling to WWE.

“It’s a lot of work. I think it’s a modified Brother Nero, because you know naturally when Matt became ‘Woken’ it was a little different than Broken. So I think this is my version of the new Brother Nero and it’s gonna only evolve more. That’s why I broke out the white contacts, I figured why not?”