Santino Marella participated in a 25-woman battle royale at WrestleMania XXV, dressed in drag as “Santina Marella” which was allegedly Santino’s twin sister. Santina went on to win the battle royal and was crowned “Miss WrestleMania”. Santina would then defend the Miss WrestleMania title for a few weeks until she was “fired” by Donald Trump on Raw.
Santino spoke to Chris Van Vliet for an interview and discussed the Santina character and revealed many interesting tidbits about it. Santino says that he was proud of playing the character. His friends and family were skeptical at first and said that there was no coming back from dressing up as a woman, but Santino thinks Santina was his best work in terms of acting.
Marella revealed that he was initially told that Santina was going to be a one-off thing, and he agreed to do it thinking it would be a funny and memorable WrestleMania moment. But after Santina’s WrestleMania appearance, Vince McMahon wanted to see more of her and Santino took the ball and ran with it.
“Well, when I was first told, I was kind of told that it would be a one-off thing. So I was like, ‘Okay, it’s gonna be funny, it’s gonna be a memorable moment. It’s a WrestleMania moment. [laughs] Probably my most significant WrestleMania moment ever, actually. And then the following week, ‘Vince wants the Santina thing again,’ and [the week after] ‘Vince wants the Santina thing again.’ Like, ‘Oh, man.’ But you know what? My philosophy has been, you give me lemons, and I’m gonna make lemonade.”
Quotes used in article transcribed by 411mania.com
