Former WWE star The Velveteen Dream (Patrick Clark) recently appeared as a guest on INSIGHT with Chris Van Vliet for an in-depth interview covering all things pro wrestling.
Clark was questioned about screenshots allegedly showing him conversing with a 16 and 17-year-old. Clark responded, “No, those aren’t conversations that I’ve ever had with anybody. Minor or adult, legal, illegal, consensual or non-consensual. Those words, those, texts, those images that have been pushed out there on the internet — they’re all false.”
Clark then said that the accounts that were making the accusations were taken down and are “no longer accessible.”
Clark added, “On April 24, 2020, I put in my DM’s as The Velveteen Dream…when I was working for the WWE, my Twitter and my Instagram, the only 2 accounts I had, were strictly for The Velveteen Dream. I did speak to a Jacob Schmidt on Instagram. We actually had a phone conversation over Instagram. At no point in time did I ever type anything or say anything that should have or could have been misconstrued as an advance of any type.”
Van Vliet then said, “I guess there’s people who are gonna say, why are you trying to be friends with a 16-year-old?”
Clark said, “There’s been a lot of people that have said a lot of things. The one thing to be very clear about [is] it’s not a friendship. It’s a mentorship. I can only akin it to the big brother, little brother program. One, if I’m going to help anyone, I’m more inclined to help a male. I’m not a female biologically or I don’t identify as a female. I don’t understand what it takes to make money in the professional wrestling world as a woman.”
Van Vliet asked, “So this is a fan reaching out saying, I’d like to be a pro wrestler. Is that what this was?”
Clark responded, “That’s all it was. That’s all any of my contacts, outside of my close friends…if I’m speaking to you, 9 times out of 10, I’m in a capacity to help you in some sort of way. I tend to do things on my own. Part of growing out of my immaturity was learning that it takes a village, you can’t do things alone. Where I thought I was maturing was allowing people who I didn’t know to have communications with me [and] not realizing the spot I was in socially, culturally and a bit politically.”
Clarks stated that the first allegation was made by someone in Canada. He claimed that the video of him asking, “What school do you go to?” was not malicious. He said, “There’s nothing malicious about a question like that. When I ask someone what school they go to, it’s to help them pursue their next journey in wrestling. Professional wrestling is not like college sports. You can’t apply to a school to become a pro wrestler unless it’s a pro wrestling school.”
Clark went on to say that by asking, he could help that person find the nearest wrestling school. Clark also stated that he has never been arrested or charged in relation to these allegations.
You can check out the complete interview below:
(h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription)
