In professional wrestling, kayfabe ( KAY-fayb) refers to the portrayal of events within the industry as real, that is, the portrayal of professional wrestling as unstaged or not worked. Referring to events or interviews as being a "work" means that the event/interview has been "kayfabed" or staged, and/or is part of a wrestling storyline while being passed off as legitimate. In relative terms, a wrestler breaking kayfabe during a show would be likened to an actor breaking character on camera.

Kayfabe is often seen as the suspension of disbelief that is used to create the non-wrestling aspects of promotions, such as feuds, storylines, and gimmicks, in a similar manner with other forms of entertainment such as soap opera or film. In the past, virtually all wrestlers adhered to kayfabe in public, even when outside the ring and off-camera, in order to preserve the illusion that the competition in pro wrestling was not staged. With the advent of the Internet Wrestling Community and the sports entertainment movement in pro wrestling, the maintenance of pro wrestling's backstage secrets are more difficult to keep than they were in earlier decades. Today, kayfabe is sometimes broken to advance storylines, to explain prolonged absences due to legitimate injury, as a tribute to a wrestler, or even for comedic effect .