All the naked details on John Cena's revealing Oscars moment: 'You can't show crack'

"He looked like a Ken doll up front," a network exec said of what Cena was hiding under the envelope.

During Sunday's Oscars, John Cena paid tribute to a legendary moment from the 1974 Academy Awards in which a streaker sprinted across the stage behind host David Niven — but we now know what the Ricky Stanicky actor was hiding under his envelope.

Cena and host Jimmy Kimmel built an entire sketch around the streak's 50th anniversary. As Cena presented the award for Best Costume Design, it appeared that he had naught between his skin and the camera lens but a strategically placed envelope. However, a peek behind the curtain — er, uh, envelope — has emerged, courtesy of an interview with the ceremony’s producers and some backstage photos.

Since the ABC telecast couldn't risk an accidental glimpse of the wrestler’s John-Cen, the burly presenter donned flesh-colored underwear that looks a lot like actual nudity when glanced from the side.

“I’m going to educate you a little here. A bulge cannot be showing, and you can’t show crack,” Rob Mills, a exec for Walt Disney Television, explained to Variety about the FCC’s strict nudity parameters. "It was also, ’What happens if he drops that card?’ So, we made sure that, for all intents and purposes, he looked like a Ken doll up front. His crack was covered in the back and then the envelope was Velcro-ed on there so it wouldn’t fall. But beyond that, he was naked.”

The standards and practice (S&P) team were even more nervous than Cena appeared to be on stage. “They were sweating,” producer Molly McNearney told the outlet. “I think at the end we all got to a spot where we were comfortable, S&P was comfortable, and it didn’t compromise the comedy a bit. I was very thankful that we didn’t have to send him out there in tighty whities, which I’m sure legal would have preferred.”

During the presentation, Cena sheepishly inched his way toward the microphone with an envelope covering his nethers, or, as we know now, his flesh-colored undies. “Costumes, they are so important,” he said. “Maybe the most important thing there is.”

As the nominees were announced by Kimmel — because Cena couldn't move that envelope — crew members moved quickly through the dark to drape Cena in a toga so he was ready to announce the winners. The whole transition was captured in videos posted to social media from the ceremony.

While Cena played deeply uncomfortable on stage for maximum comedic effect, he didn't look quite so embarrassed in the behind-the-scenes pictures. Moreover, he doesn't seem too uncomfortable getting down to next-to-nothing as a wrestler — as he joked about with Kimmel in the bit — or nothing at all, as he was in Blockers, Peacemaker, and Trainwreck, previously.

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