The Onscreen Marriage and Regime of Triple H & Stephanie McMahon

Triple H and Stephanie McMahon are undoubtedly one of wrestling’s most powerful couples. Married for nearly 20 years with 3 children, The Cerebral Assassin and his wife seemingly have a strong and loving relationship. But in the world of kayfabe and WWE storylines, Triple H and Stephanie divorced in 2002. Their marriage would last over two and a half years before bringing their real-life relationship back on screen and into a storyline in 2009.

In the autumn of 1999, Stephanie McMahon was happily in love with Test and their wedding was set to take place on Monday Night RAW as the McMahon family welcomed the world to join them when their daughter walked down the aisle. Vince McMahon, who was in the middle of a back-and-forth war with Triple H that had been going on for two months. Their feud started when Triple H threatened Linda McMahon, Vince made a return to WWE to stand up for his wife and challenged Triple H to a match. In a memorable moment from the early days of SmackDown, Vince McMahon defeated Triple H to win the WWE Championship.

Only weeks before the wedding, Vince McMahon accused Triple H of running over Stone Cold Steve Austin at Survivor Series. So as the wedding began, the whole audience was waiting for Triple H to make his appearance as tensions were escalating between the pair. So, when Triple H’s music hit the arena, the crowd went wild. Triple H standing in his leather jacket on stage with a corsage on his lapel. He told the McMahon family that he had some footage to show them. 

When the footage is shown; it’s of Stephanie McMahon, drugged and unconscious in Las Vegas with Triple H at a drive-thru wedding chapel. Questions should rightfully be asked on the circumstances of the video being played with the message it portrays that Triple H has drugged a young woman and abducted her. In the video, Triple H and Stephanie get married at a Las Vegas chapel with Triple H mimicking the voice of Stephanie McMahon.   

There is a memorable line that Triple H says at the end of the video that brings gasps and a roar at the same time from the RAW crowd; 

“Take a look at the new Mr and Mrs. Hunter Hurest Helmsley”

Back in the arena, Stephanie was in tears screaming at Triple H. Vince, Shane and Test were all seething as Triple H stood on the stage, now wearing a ring. He comically called Vince ‘Dad’ as the show went off the air with a shot of Vince holding a tearful Stephanie.

With revenge on McMahon’s mind, A match was made for the next Pay Per View, Armageddon. Triple H and Vince McMahon would square off in a No Holds Barred Match with added stipulations. If Triple H won, he would be granted a WWE Championship Match but if Mr. McMahon won. Triple H agreed to the annulment of his marriage to Stephanie.

At Armageddon, Triple H defeated Vince McMahon with the help of Stephanie. Turning her back on her father and the rest of her family. The next night on RAW, Stephanie would address her father in the ring. With Vince calling out Triple H with a sledgehammer in hand looking for a fight, but instead he gets his daughter. Stephanie proceeds to cut her first heel promo, calling back to earlier in the year to the Corporation and Ministry of Darkness feud. Stephanie recalls how she hasn’t forgiven her dad for having her abducted by The Undertaker. She reminds Vince that he almost had her married to The Lord of Darkness in a sacrifice. She says her father betrayed her and she fell in love with a man that stood up to McMahon. She and Triple H planned the whole wedding together and because Vince had hurt her, she married the man he hates the most. Triple H eventually comes down and leaves a distraught Vince watching on as Triple H and Stephanie kiss in front of him. 

With Vince and Shane McMahon gone from our screens, The McMahon- Helmsley Regime began. Over the Christmas period, Triple H regained the WWE Championship with a win over The Big Show. They then fired Mankind but The Rock and the WWE roster went on strike to have Mick Foley reinstated. With a WWE Championship Match booked at Royal Rumble; Mick Foley brought back his old but more hardcore character Cactus Jack for his street fight with Triple H.

The McMahon-Helmsley regime didn’t just interfere with the people at the top of the card, they meddled with everyone up and down the roster creating enemies with The Rock, Chris Jericho, The Hardy Boyz, APA, Kane and more.

After defeating Cactus Jack in a street fight at the Royal Rumble, Triple H and Stephanie had no choice but to grant Cactus Jack a rematch at No Way Out inside Hell in a Cell. Winning once more, it was another match on the card that had more of an impact on their relationship. Shane McMahon returned to help The Big Show defeat The Rock to book his place in the main event of Wrestlemania. On the road to the biggest event of the year, Vince McMahon and Linda McMahon made their return and each found their place at ringside for the main event of Wrestlemania 2000.

This meant that the couple had all their family involved in an effort to take away the WWE Championship from Triple H. On the lead up to the show, Shane and Stephanie reconciled, but Linda argued with Vince and asked him to put things right with the McMahon Family. In the main event, Vince would accept his new son in law and help him retain the WWE Championship in defeating The Rock, Big Show and Mick Foley.

The Raw after Wrestlemania saw the reconciliation of the McMahon Family, minus Linda. Vince, Shane, Stephanie and Triple H all embraced in the ring as Triple H was finally accepted into the McMahon Inner Circle. It seemed a happy time for Triple H and Stephanie, but Chris Jericho begun mocking Stephanie and calling her a ‘slut’. Defending his wife honour, Triple H challenged Y2J to a match on the April 17th Raw, a match Triple H would lose. To make matters worse, that evening Linda McMahon turned up and announced that at Backlash, Stone Cold Steve Austin would be in the corner of Triple H is challenger, The Rock. 

Furious that his mother-in-law had gotten involved in his match with The Rock, Stephanie said she would take care of her mother. Stephanie confronted her mother and slapped her on a episode of SmackDown. Linda gained revenge at Backlash, slapping her daughter back and helping The Rock defeat Triple H to win the WWE Championship. 

With family problems in the rear view, Stephanie and Triple H had a problem with Chris Jericho. Jericho in an act of humiliation kissed Stephanie, this infuriated Triple H and looking for revenge challenged Y2J to a last man standing match at Fully Loaded. Jericho continued to insult Mrs. McMahon-Helmsley as they headed to the match and an irate Triple H defeated Chris Jericho in their match at Fully Loaded.

In defending her honour, one man had more increasingly begun getting closer to Stephanie. Ever since the start of 2000, Kurt Angle had been a frequent topic of discussion in the marriage of Triple H and Stephanie. With passing comments from the billion-dollar princess of how good Angle was in the ring. A jealous Triple H booked him in a match at Royal Rumble 2000 against a surprise opponent, which turned out to be Tazz. With comments like this, the seeds had been set and by the time of Summer of 2000, Kurt and Stephanie were being seen more and more. 

Both Triple H and Kurt Angle earned a championship opportunity at Summerslam and Shane and Stephanie convinced them they should work together to beat The Rock. This created tension between the happy couple and commissioner Mick Foley added to that. On SmackDown, he made a mixed tag team match of Triple H and Trish Stratus against The Rock and Lita. Backstage, Trish approached Triple H for advice on wrestling holds. When both were in an awkward position, Stephanie walked in and went ballistic at the pair. In their match, Trish and Triple H were left in a compromising position thanks to The Rock. 

With a rift between the married couple patched over slightly, Kurt and Triple H teamed together on the go home show of Summerslam. During the match, Stephanie hit her head and Angle, concerned carried Stephanie backstage. Once in the back, a dazed Stephanie lay on a sofa and Kurt announced he had feelings for Stephanie and kissed her to end the show. 

Kurt Angle spoke on his podcast The Kurt Angle Show on filming the scene of him kissing the boss’s daughter. 

Oh, this was ridiculously weird. I mean, to come backstage with Stephanie and to have to do a pre-tape that was going live, so we weren’t going to tape it, it was going to be one take. I think Vince did that on purpose so we only had to kiss once. I also don’t know if we had the time to pre-tape it, so that was probably the real issue. We got backstage and Vince wants to direct it. I was like, ‘Holy shit,’ Vince McMahon, Stephanie McMahon’s father is going to direct me kissing her during a pre-tape. I was nervous as hell. Vince was four feet away and his eyes were this open. He’s just looking. I’m like, ‘This is so weird, man. I don’t know how I’m going to do this.’ So, I went down to kiss her and we caught eyes and then we went to kiss and I stuck my lips out like this because I didn’t want to go with an open mouth because Vince was there and I didn’t want to disrespect Triple H or Stephanie. But I kissed her like this and after the pre-tape, she goes, ‘Hey, you kiss like a fish.’ I was like, ‘What did you expect Stephanie, your dad’s here watching. He’s directing. Your dating Triple H. What do you want me to do?’”

At Summerslam, Triple H accidentally hit his wife and Kurt Angle would carry Stephanie out of the arena with Triple H down. The next night, Triple H questioned where Stephanie was to Angle as Triple H hadn’t seen her in 24 hours. Worried about Stephanie, Kurt Angle accused Triple H of purposely striking his wife. When Stephanie did return, she made it known that she and Kurt were just friends, and she was married to Triple H. But Angle, annoyed at Triple H questioning why Angle would want to be only friends with Stephanie, snapped attacking Triple H and forced a kiss on Mrs. McMahon-Helmsley. This led to a match at Unforgiven where Stephanie and Triple H showed they had a strong relationship as The Game pinned Kurt Angle. 

Whilst still being seen on television together and Stephanie accompanying Triple H at ringside at times, they both moved on into different storylines. But on SmackDown, Triple H surprised Stephanie with a 1-year anniversary dinner. The only problem was that Triple H expected Stone Cold Steve Austin to ruin everything. Suspecting Austin to enter the room, Triple H attacked with the lights turned out. When the lights came back on, Triple H saw that he had accidentally attacked his father-in-law Vince who had come to visit to congratulate the couple for their anniversary. 

As 2000 turned into 2001, the couple were regularly seen together, portraying a happy couple as Triple H feuded with Austin and Undertaker; Stephanie became involved in more family drama with Vince fighting Shane at Wrestlemania. When her husband joined forces with Austin to create the Two Man Power Trip, Stephanie still accompanied Triple H to ringside. She was ringside the night Triple H suffered an injury that would keep him out for the rest of the year. 

Triple H missed the rest of 2001 and on the first RAW of 2002, from Madison Square Garden, Triple H made his return to television after 6 months out injured to a massive ovation. Triple H would go on to win the Royal Rumble and book his place in the main event of Wrestlemania X-8. Outside the ring, problems had begun for the married couple. Triple H was showing signs he was tired of his wife’s manipulative ways and kicked Stephanie out of their dressing room after he lost a match against Booker T.  Sensing there were issues in their relationship, she suggested that they should renew their wedding vows and that she was pregnant with their first child. Overjoyed, Triple H agreed to the renewal of vows. 

As Triple H was preparing for the ceremony on an episode of RAW, he received a phone call from Linda McMahon. Linda proved to Triple H that Stephanie was lying to Triple H about being pregnant. As the renewal ceremony took place, Vince accompanied his daughter down the aisle. Triple H declared their marriage over in the ceremony and threw his ring away and delivered a pedigree to his father-in-law. 

As a jilted ex-wife, Stephanie tried to ruin Triple H’s match at Wrestlemania. First, she made a match for No Way Out where Triple H had to defend his right to face Chris Jericho at Wrestlemania, With the throwback to their history, she gave Kurt Angle the opportunity at No Way Out. To stack the odds against her husband more, Stephanie made herself the special guest referee and delivered a fast count to give Angle the win. Triple H won the right to face Y2J back the next night and with this, Stephanie side with the champion, her most hated nemesis Chris Jericho. 

After years of abuse from Jericho towards her, both now had a common enemy and goal; to stop Triple H from becoming champion. On the road to Wrestlemania, Jericho questioned whether he started the breakup of the couple as it was Jericho who injured Triple H months earlier.  

 Triple H and Stephanie divorce proceedings began, and the settlement was for their assets to be split ‘fifty-fifty’. Stephanie demanded that she receive her favourite car, the corvette. Triple H comically delivered half a car as the settlement stated half each. Another asset was their bulldog ‘Lucy’. Whilst looking after her, Jericho accidentally put her in harm’s way with a limo driver running her over. Furious, Triple H tried to attack Jericho and Stephanie but had to wait until their match at Wrestlemania. Triple H defeated Chris Jericho to win the WWE Undisputed Championship and delivered a pedigree to his soon-to-be former wife. 

 The RAW after Wrestlemania, Triple H beat Jericho and Stephanie in a handicap match, due to stipulations agreed before, this meant Stephanie would leave WWE. But a few months later, Stephanie was announced as the general manager of SmackDown. One of her first moves as general manager was to try and sign free agent Triple H. Raw General Manager Eric Bischoff, thinking he had failed in his attempt, approached Triple H as he came out of the office of Stephanie McMahon. He announced that he did sign, but it wasn’t a SmackDown contract but the divorce papers. On July 21, 2002, Stephanie McMahon and Triple H divorced and their kayfabe marriage was officially over.  

The second half of the famous attitude era has a massive focus on the couple with weekly television written around their exploits. Their break-up brought their storylines full circle with Stephanie siding with the two men that threatened their relationship previously. Whilst working together, Stephanie McMahon and Triple H fell in love outside the world of wrestling and are still married to this day. But their marriage within the world of WWE television lasted a memorable two and a half years.