Little Jimmy: 5 things you might not know about R-Truth's friend - Unseen WWE photos, secret age

R-Truth defeated Drew Gulak on the WWE Hell in a Cell 2020 kickoff show to retain his 24/7 Championship.

At the start of the match, Gulak bent down on one knee and began to talk to R-Truth’s imaginary friend, Little Jimmy.

As R-Truth watched on with a confused expression on his face, Gulak initially looked as though he was going to be nice to Little Jimmy.

However, shortly after giving him a high-five, the former Cruiserweight Champion risked the wrath of his opponent by kicking Little Jimmy over the top rope.

Needless to say, R-Truth did not take too kindly to Gulak’s actions. The 24/7 Champion immediately took down the challenger and connected with a series of punches.

Little Jimmy has appeared sporadically alongside R-Truth over the last decade, but not many details about the imaginary person have been revealed on WWE television.

With that in mind, let’s take a light-hearted look at five things you might not know about R-Truth’s friend.

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#5 How R-Truth introduced Little Jimmy to WWE

R-Truth revealed on E&C’s Pod of Awesomeness in 2019 that the Little Jimmy character was accidentally invented after Vince McMahon caught him smoking a cigarette.

The WWE Chairman decided to make light of R-Truth's real-life smoking by booking his character to smoke a cigarette on WWE RAW.

McMahon sensed that WWE fans started to react more positively to R-Truth, who was a heel at the time, after his "cool" smoking segment.

In an attempt to cement R-Truth's bad-guy status, McMahon told the Superstar to refer to WWE fans as "Little Jimmys".

"Like in the moment I came out, Vince was like, 'Okay, they’re cheering for it. I want you to come out and s*** on the people and call them all Little Jimmys, all John Cena fans.'

"I did that, and I just happened to turn to the side, and bend down and said, 'Aw, Little Jimmy, all the Little Jimmys out there wanna be like you.' And from that point on, everybody pointed and said, 'He’s talking to Little Jimmy!'" [H/T 411mania]

The smoking segment (05:00 in the video above) had to be removed from the WWE RAW broadcast in the UK.

That episode of RAW took place in London, England, where it is illegal to smoke in an indoor public area.

As soon as R-Truth started smoking, the fans in attendance began chanting, “That’s illegal!” towards the WWE Superstar.

#4 R-Truth addressed Little Jimmy’s age in an interview

At the age of 48, R-Truth is currently the oldest full-time Superstar on the WWE roster. Only three other Superstars – Triple H (51), Goldberg, and Kane (both 53) – are older than the WWE veteran.

Now, while R-Truth’s age is certainly not a secret, his imaginary sidekick’s age has always been a mystery.

Little Jimmy was introduced to WWE programming as a child back in 2011, so how old is he now?

During a Los Angeles Times interview in 2012, an 11-year-old interviewer mentioned to R-Truth that it is difficult to tell how old Little Jimmy is.

In typical R-Truth fashion, even he did not know exactly how old his friend was at the time:

"He won’t tell anyone how old he is. He always tells me, ‘I’m old enough to eat cornbread without choking on it.’"

Although Little Jimmy’s age is still unclear, R-Truth recently confirmed that his friend is still a child (more on that shortly).

#3 Daniel Bryan attacked Little Jimmy in front of R-Truth

Drew Gulak’s actions towards R-Truth's imaginary friend at WWE Hell in a Cell 2020 are nothing new.

Back in 2012, a naive Little Jimmy fell into exactly the same trap when he encountered Daniel Bryan on WWE RAW.

During an in-ring promo, Bryan turned his attention to R-Truth’s buddy and walked over to him in the corner of the ring.

“Where is Little Jimmy? Oh, is this Little Jimmy right here? Oh, Little Jimmy. Hi, Little Jimmy. I’m Daniel Bryan. It’s really nice to meet you. I hear you’re my biggest fan. Oh yeah, it’s nice to meet you.”

Bryan then petted Little Jimmy on the head before kicking him over the top rope.

“What’s wrong with me? What’s wrong with me? You [R-Truth] are consoling an invisible child. What’s wrong with me?”

R-Truth, who had Kofi Kingston by his side, quickly climbed through the ropes and held the injured Little Jimmy in his arms at ringside.

#2 R-Truth had to pay money to get Little Jimmy out of juvenile camp

Speaking on The Bump in September 2020 (1:03:10 in the video above), R-Truth revealed that Little Jimmy was going through a difficult stage.

The 24/7 Champion's friend gave into peer pressure and started hanging around with bad people, resulting in him being sent to a detention center.

R-Truth described the situation as “embarrassing” and said he was putting together some money to get Little Jimmy out:

“Dog, like, it’s really embarrassing, man. It's like, bro, he done got locked up, man... in juvenile camp, you know what I’m saying? So it’s like, we taking up money now, we taking up money now to get him out.

“Bro, he just went down the wrong path. A lot of kids get influenced and peer pressured by a lot of different stuff and different people and stuff around them and things like that.”

R-Truth added that, like a lot of youngsters, Little Jimmy simply needed some guidance in his life to get him back on the right track.

#1 WWE released unseen photos of R-Truth's friend

In 2012, WWE posted 14 never-before-seen pictures of Little Jimmy on the company’s website. The first picture showed him alongside R-Truth, while the others gave an insight into Little Jimmy’s upbringing and active lifestyle.

As you can see above, Little Jimmy can be seen getting a haircut, enjoying a bike ride, and even performing tricks on his skateboard.

The article, which WWE claimed to be a photo album of Little Jimmy’s day-to-day life, also revealed the following facts about R-Truth’s friend:

• Little Jimmy is an art enthusiast and a devotee of Postmodern Hyperrealism
• Little Jimmy gave the closing speech at his kindergarten class’ graduation ceremony
• Little Jimmy loves Halloween and playing tug-of-war

It is worth bearing in mind that WWE released these facts about Little Jimmy back in 2012.

Now we know about Little Jimmy’s spell in the detention center, it is unclear whether R-Truth’s friend is still as enthusiastic about Halloween and tug-of-war.

Either way, now that he is back on television and by the 24/7 Champion’s side, Little Jimmy’s troubled life looks like it is beginning to turn around.