Lil Yachty has high praise for Trick Williams and the impact the WWE star has had on his life away from wrestling.
During an appearance on INSIGHT with Chris Van Vliet (see video below), Yachty discussed the friendship he has developed with Williams, describing him as being like a brother.
“That is like my brother. That relationship, I couldn’t have paid for it. I couldn’t have asked for it. That was like dropped down from God,” Yachty said. “I couldn’t have asked for that friendship, man.”
Yachty went on to call Williams the most positive influence he has had in his life.
“That guy, he’s been the most positive influence on my life I’ve ever had, and I’ve always wanted an older brother like that. He’s really helped change my life for the better.”
While Yachty is grateful for the wrestling opportunities that have come from their relationship, he said Williams has had an even greater influence on him behind the scenes.
“Not only with the wrestling stuff and the opportunity, I’m grateful for that too. But off camera, just my health and training, and just the way he lives his life,” Yachty said.
Yachty contrasted Williams’ structured lifestyle with what he has experienced throughout his career in the rap industry.
“I come from rap. It’s dark. We live a different life. I’m up all night. It’s a lot of drugs and women, and it’s just a different lifestyle. With Trick it is really routine, schedule, really healthy, really clean, on point, just a structured guy.”
He continued, “Just being around him has really reshifted my brain in so many ways of life that he would never even know or understand because it’s just an image I haven’t had around being in studios with rappers and in the club or whatever. Just the way he lives has shifted me.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Yachty discussed his involvement in the “Gingerbread Man” storyline with Williams and Sami Zayn. According to Yachty, the nickname was something he and Williams came up with themselves.
“So funny, it was not supposed to work. I remember when me and Trick got in, we were like, man, y’all sure? But then we just tried to make the most of it,” Yachty recalled.
“Funny enough, they didn’t actually pitch Gingerbread Man. That was something we said, because he was ginger. Just me and Trick clowning and calling him Gingerbread Man.”
From there, Yachty leaned into the concept by having a shirt made, bringing in gingerbread cookies and working with Williams on ways to continue the joke.
“Me and Trick, we always get on the phone or text and sh*t, be together and we just think of ideas. How we gonna say this? What we gonna do?” he said. “We’ll spend the whole day in my dressing room just trying to figure out how we gonna clown, or what jokes we gonna make, and it just stuck, and then it turned into a thing, and it was so fun.”
Yachty also defended the sillier side of professional wrestling while discussing the Gingerbread Man funeral segment.
“It was so silly. It was so silly. I mean, again, people forget it’s entertainment, and it’s supposed to be funny. It’s supposed to be fun, and yeah, it’s good wrestling, but it’s entertainment and fun and have fun, man. Don’t be so uptight.”
He added, “Sometimes I be thinking it’s like, damn, you just want a card full of five-star matches.”
The funeral included Yachty sitting up from a coffin in a nod to The Undertaker. Yachty revealed that the spot required some preparation — and assistance.
“I had to practice that, bro. They had to pad my feet up so I could push. I don’t have the abs for that,” he said. “That’s ab work, man. Shout out to the Undertaker. That’s ab work, sitting up.”
Also during the interview, Lil Yachty admitted he was in the “most pain I ever felt in my life” after WWE debut against Baron Corbin.
