Despite his imposing frame, Dave Bautista did not earn his menacing looks without a few battle scars. In fact, the star had a tumultuous upbringing, characterized by economic hardship and a milieu of violence. In an interview with the Tampa Bay Times, it was revealed Bautista grew up amidst the crime wave that swept Washington D.C. in the 1980s. The outlet noted that as a child, Bautista once saw a man get beat up and almost thrown from the overpass from his doorstep, and also bared witness to his mom getting attacked.
Though those incidents were traumatic in and of themselves, there is one event that truly stands out from Bautista’s terrifying childhood. One afternoon as Bautista, his sister, and a number of kids were blissfully playing outside, mother, Donna Raye, noticed something incredibly off — a dead body was lying outside their home. The police had been called after the unnamed man was shot to death, but unfortunately were taking too long to show up. Bautista, his sister, and the neighborhood children, however, had become so desensitized to death that the body did not even seem to faze them during playtime.
That was the moment where Donna Raye finally drew the line and soon moved her children to San Francisco in hopes of a better life. And while imminent death no longer was an issue, there were still more concerns that plagued the Bautista household at hand.