John Cena recently appeared on Jimmy Fallon’s Tonight Performance to promote his new HBO Max series Peacemaker, clad in his show gear. Fallon asked Cena about the origin of his notorious “You Can’t See Me” gesture, which became popular during his prime days as a wrestler in the WWE, during the chat. The gesture began as a dare between Cena and his younger brother Sean, according to Cena.
“The reason I did this is cause while we were making the album to which my theme music is on, my younger brother, Sean, was always our litmus test,” Cena said. “He kinda liked the same music and he would never go to the studio with us and we’d come home with our tracks and play it for him and he was ruthless man. He would never be satisfied with any song.
“He heard ‘My Time Is Now’ and just did this dance that Tony Yayo did in one of the G-Unit videos,” Cena continued. “It was like, he put his hand over his head and just kind of bobbed his head… and I was like, ‘Man, what are you doing? That looked just ridiculous.’ He said, ‘No, no, it’s Tony Yayo, he’s doing this thing.’”
Cena then proposed that the next time he appeared on television, he would imitate the gesture, prompting his younger brother to take a challenge. The dare was accepted by Cena, and the rest is history. Year after year, it just overtook meme culture, and now I’m practically invisible,” Cena remarked. They wonder, ‘Why is Jimmy Fallon speaking to an empty chair?'” ‘There will be a lot of people who say that.’ This makes me invisibility. By mistake, on a dare.”
Cena’s words were picked up by Tony Yayo, who responded to him on Twitter. He tweeted, “Shout out to John Cena.”
