Female Ex-WWE Star Says Backstage Pressure Led To 20-Pound Weight Gain

A former WWE champion made a shocking confession about her run in the company.

Kaitlyn wrestled for the WWE between 2010 and 2014. She was part of season three of NXT. After winning NXT, she moved on to the main roster. She was able to stand out on the main roster because she was a lot more bulky than some of the top women at the time. Her weight always became a topic of discussion that held her down.

WWE even asked her to lose 10 pounds when they hired her. This added more pressure to an already stressful job and work schedule, which didn’t help the former WWE star lose any weight at all.

Kaitlyn gained 20 pounds due to backstage pressure in WWE

During an interview with TMZ’s Inside The Ring, Kaitlyn revealed that she felt more pressure backstage than she ever did in the ring in front of a live crowd. She also noted that when she moved up to the main roster, many of the women in the locker room were not welcoming at all.

“That was literally the hardest part. And I say this sometimes in interviews or just in conversations with people that are really interested about what are the inner workings of that career, and this is so true- I’m not exaggerating; I felt more pressure backstage than I ever did in the ring on television in front of, you know, 4,000 people live and millions of people at home. But like I can understand it. Like the perspective I have now, I’m just like, you know, like it was what it was and like I get it. But when I debuted and was put on television for NXT and then I ended up winning NXT and I got a spot on the main roster, they put me on SmackDown. First of all, with NXT, with all of the NXT girls, like the six of us, we were not allowed to be in the main locker room with the main talent, the women. We were always in this other little tiny room. When I got my spot on the roster, it was all of a sudden time for me to start going into the bigger locker room. And some of the women that were there, some of the top women that were there did not like that. They were not welcoming. There was the women like Beth Phoenix, Eve Torres, Natalia who were so kind and truly mentors in so many ways.”

Kaitlyn further added that her storyline feud with AJ Lee was the highlight of her WWE run. However, being a champion put a bigger spotlight on her, and this resulted in her gaining weight. The former WWE star admitted that she was 20 pounds heavier when she asked for her release than when she first signed with the company.

“I had had my title run and then my storyline with AJ started, which was the highlight of my career pretty much. I had my best matches with her. We gained a lot of momentum together. We were getting longer segments. We were getting crossover segments. Like, we were killing it. During that time, it was kind of also what I spoke to, it was this buildup of emotional chaos that I didn’t know how to handle and it was more pressure, more spotlight. I was just gaining weight and so it was adding to this insecurity that I had. By the time that I asked my release, I was 30 lbs heavier than I am now. I was at my heaviest I’ve ever been in my life, was 170 lbs. Now I sit at about 140. And when I got hired, I was about 145 or 150. So, it was a lot of weight. The way that I see it now is like the weight was like a metaphor for like the pressure and the emotional weight that I was carrying that I didn’t know how to process.”

It remains to be seen if Kaitlyn will ever return to the WWE again.

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