Jim Ross Reveals That Early Plans For Goldust Called For Marlena To Wear A Prosthetic Penis

When Goldust first debuted in 1995, the word often used to describe him was “bizarre.” Well, this is bizarre.

While discussing the 1995 Survivor Series, Jim Ross imparted some wisdom concerning the early days of the Goldust character and an envelope-pushing element that was left on the cutting room floor of WWE creative.

Marlena would make her debut at the 1996 Royal Rumble alongside her husband at the time, Goldust. Goldust for the groundbreaking for the mid-90s as he portrayed a very androgynous character. According to Jim Ross, an element of this androgyny, specifically pitched by Vince McMahon was to be a prosthetic penis worn by the Marlena character to throw the audience off even more.

“Goldust was created to be polarizing. You know, it was very polarizing and when we put and is even going to be more so, Vince was all in this, the Attitude Era coming along with the sexual characters, this androgynous guy,” Jim began. “Was he really androgynous? Was he gay? Was he straight? Was he bisexual? We had no idea. But it was a very unique presentation to the point, and I told this to Terri Runnels one time and she was appalled, probably appalled at me. I’m not sure. But Vince had an idea to have to give her a prosthetic penis to wear under her attire. Something that was never [to be] talked about. Nobody said anything. It was never focused on. It was just there. Luckily, cooler heads prevailed and that never made air and it never even happened. She wasn’t aware of it. There was a thought at one time about really going… ‘Well we’re going to go all the way, let’s go all the way.’ No, let’s don’t If we go all the way, we’re gonna step off of a cliff here. I don’t want to fall off a cliff. We don’t need to be falling off cliffs here. Let’s get close to the edge, but not quite step over it.”

While they never went in this direction with the character, only 2 years later Goldust was walked out on a leash on TV by Luna Vachon with a ball gag in his mouth, during the thick of WWE’s Attitude Era.

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