AJ Lee Was ‘Genuinely And Pleasantly Surprised’ To See The Shift In How Mental Health Issues Are Treated In Pro Wrestling Following Her Retirement

AJ Lee says she was ‘genuinely and pleasantly surprised’ to see the shift in how mental issues are treated in professional wrestling.

AJ has been very vocal about her mental health issues following her retirement from professional wrestling and has now discussed how she felt coming back into wrestling.

While speaking to the Match-Up in a new interview, AJ Lee spoke about how she was ‘genuinely and pleasantly’ surprised to see how treatment of mental health issues had shifted in pro wrestling since her retirement from the ring.

“I’m really proud of how far it’s come because… I’ve been pretty open about how like my last year wrestling was my worst mental health year. Like I looked like everything in the world and I’m champion and all this stuff, but I was so deeply depressed, and part of, you know, my journey after was like finding what’s the right treatment for me and becoming a mental health advocate and like becoming a keynote speaker and like really trying to send this message to not just people in sports, but also, like, communities of color, like, us, like, as a Latina, like, we don’t talk about our mental health. Like, it’s not a thing that’s, like, accepted in our culture, and there’s so many barriers to treatment. So that’s been, like, a huge part of the journey is sort of opening up people’s eyes to when you come from a certain socioeconomic background or cultural background or there’s language barriers or, like, you’re in a health care desert, like there’s all these different barriers just to get in the door, and then to not even be like represented in clinical trials and research. It’s been this like 10 year journey of trying to sort of make people aware of how important that is on so many different levels, and then to come back into wrestling and see that they have also opened up their mind. When the first thing I wanted to make sure was going to work was, is my mental health protected? Do I feel safe here? Are you guys aware of what that means to need you know, mental health time off or sort of just like, is that something that is a priority for that to be a priority? The conversation was really cool in a way that like, I couldn’t even reveal my diagnosis 10 years ago, but now it’s like, you know, a part of my contract. So like that is a really cool, beautiful thing. I hope all sports, you know, can incorporate that because it is such a a different, you know, like you were saying, you do need such exceptional internal health and mental health to just perform safely. So I was so genuinely and pleasantly surprised to see that shift.”

Elsewhere in the same interview, AJ spoke about a young fan’s reaction to her 2012 heel turn. You can read more about that here.

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