breaking kayfabe
- noun
- /ˈbreɪkɪŋ ˈkeɪfeɪb/
- Jargon
:
romper kayfabe
- The actor's social media posts often break kayfabe, showing the humorous side of life behind the scenes.
Examples
-
For all the egos, slap fights, and psychotic, drooling Kevin Garnetts and CIA-serious Popoviches, he's always been one to break kayfabe and have fun.
Blog text (16) -
In his latest interview, the wrestler openly discussed his backstage struggles, effectively breaking kayfabe for the fans.
-
During the documentary, the star revealed how much of the storyline was scripted, openly breaking kayfabe in front of the audience.
How Revealing
Surface Forms
Morphology
break + kayfabe
The sense 'to reveal the scripted/staged nature of a performance' follows directly from combining 'break' (to reveal) with 'kayfabe' (the staged pretense in wrestling), so the meaning is compositionally derivable if both constituents are known. However, 'kayfabe' is specialized wrestling jargon and absent from general dictionaries, so the phrase will remain unintelligible to learners who do not already know that noun.
Etymology
Breaking kayfabe comes from old performers who used kayfabe to mean the rule of staying 'in character' during a show. To break that rule was to show the audience the real life behind the act, so breaking kayfabe now means revealing that a performance was 'staged'.