Jeanie Clarke, Steve Austin’s one-time valet and ex-wife, appeared on In Your Head Wrestling Radio to talk about her days in professional wrestling and more. You can check out a few highlights below and listen to the interview above.
If she really came up with the name “Stone Cold” for Steve Austin:
“Yes, I did, over a cup of tea…Basically, the concept was Steve’s, because Steve and I were just sitting watching TV, flicking channels, and this show came on called “The Iceman” about a killer, a hit man type guy. Steve just said, “I want a character like that”, meaning someone cold, and he called Vince (McMahon) and he said this is the character he wanted. The office, they were just sending all these faxes of these temperature-based names like Fang McFrost…they were so hokey. I remember Brian Pillman and Steve in hysterics over these names, but none of them worked for Steve. One day he was just kind of pensive, a little bit worried-looking, and I just said, “Drink your tea before it gets stone cold” and I went, “There it is, Stone Cold.” He got a big smile on his face, and he liked it, so that’s how it started, over that cup of tea.”
Her marriage with Steve Austin falling apart:
“Well, a lot of it was my fault…I got really comfortable in Atlanta, and I had a lot of friends, so when Steve was gone a lot I was always doing stuff and going out for dinner with my friends and shopping and taking the kids to McDonald’s or something and stuff. Then Steve picked out Boerne, Texas, which is quite rural, which is what Steve likes, and I didn’t have any friends. So when he went on the road, I was very lonely, and I developed really bad addiction problems, which I’m going to just be honest about. I started with pain killers and sleepers, and you know how it is. He had a lot of pressure on him then because he was now Stone Cold so he had lots of T-shirts to do, and it just wasn’t good for him or me because he was under a lot of pressure and I was out of it really taking too many pills. I was in rehab for six months, a long time…I have been clean for two years…I can just say that addiction is a very crafty thing because you can start off just taking a little bit, and in the beginning you do feel good, and as the tolerance grows then you still have something a little bit stronger and then you snowball out of control, your whole life goes out of control, and that’s what happened to me.”
Does she have a good relationship with Steve Austin today?
“Yeah, I do. We’re very amicable…As a matter of fact, after I was in rehab for six months I called Steve up and I said you know, I can actually see my part in it now because when you’re using you think everything else is everybody else’s fault and you get really secretive about how much you’re taking…You have another side to you that you don’t want anyone to know about your addiction or how bad it’s getting, so I did say to him this was my part in it and he appreciated that…I talked to him a couple of months ago and he was glad I was still clean.”
