Jessica McKay (Billie Kay) Never Wanted The IIconics To Turn On Each Other

On the August 31, 2020 episode of WWE Raw, the IIconics (Peyton Royce & Billie Kay) were forced to split as a result of their loss to The Riott Squad (Ruby Riott & Liv Morgan).

The former WWE Women’s Tag Team Champions would face each the following week on Raw before being drafted to different brands in the 2020 WWE Draft. 

Speaking to Chris Van Vliet on Insight, Jessica McKay (Billie Kay) discussed the split and where she wanted things to go. 

“Personally, I didn’t want to feud. I didn’t want one of us to turn heel on each other. That’s just me being selfish. I wanted to leave it open-ended. I wanted there to be a reason for it, but I didn’t want us to blatantly turn on each other, only because we thought we would get back together in the future. Also, I feel like every tag team does that. I wanted to be different. What’s different? Breaking up, but not hating each other. It’s been done so many times and we were trying to think of what’s different, what hasn’t been done? When we found out the stipulation it was like, ‘Oh, perfect,’ it fit what we were going for, hopefully. They could have booked anything, but I personally wanted to end it mutually so we could come back to each other easier,” she said. 

McKay continued by saying. “We were spitballing ideas, but at the end of the day, you hope for the best. You show up and it’s completely different. That was a lot of us talking and figuring out what we would prefer because we didn’t know what it was happening and there was still question marks around it. We were just trying to figure out what we would like. Then it did happen and we found out the stipulation and it was, ‘Okay, we can work with this.'”

Cassie Lee (Peyton Royce) previously took blame for the IIconics split, feeling it was her fault because she mentioned being on her own when talking with Vince McMahon. 

McKay said about Lee’s comments, “Vince saw Cass in the ring, in a singles matches, and thought she was incredible, that she was a star. Like, duh. I feel like there was, ‘What do we do with the IIconics, maybe we should split them up?’ I feel like that kind of sparked the conversation, but I wasn’t there and you don’t know what is said behind closed doors and in those meetings. I have no idea what the direction they thought was. We still had a little time together after that singles match so I feel like they were still trying to figure it out, what we could do and stuff. Tag teams, unless you’re the bloody New Day, which, I would have loved to be a tag team for that long. It’s kind of inevitable that you evolve and go your separate ways. I was glad that the draft was coming up because I knew that they needed to put us on separate brands.”

Both women ended up being put back in tag teams as McKay teamed with Carmella and Lee teamed with Lacey Evans before Evans was off television following her pregnancy announcement. 

The duo were released by WWE on April 15. 

They have since rebranded as The IInspiration and announced upcoming tour dates. You can learn more by clicking here. 

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