Ex-WWE Star Says Retirement Announcement Led To Death Threats

A former WWE star has claimed that after they announced they were stepping away from the ring, they received death threats.

Back in September 2025, former WWE star Dana Brooke, now better known as TNA’s Ash By Elegance, announced she was being forced to step away from the ring and vacated her TNA Knockouts Championship. In further comments, she made clear that she was retiring, although she stopped short of explaining why she had to give up her wrestling career.

However, a few short months later, in January 2026, Ash By Elegance returned to TNA, and it seems she is now medically cleared to compete.

Ex-WWE Star Passionate About Wrestling

Speaking to Denise Salcedo, the former WWE 24/7 Champion kept tight-lipped on why she had to take time away from wrestling and says some of the reaction she received online has been frightening:

To be honest with you, it’s personal, and when I feel like I’m ready to share, I will share. I’ve always been transparent about my whole life but this is something that was very personal to me. It did result in retiring or vacating the title, and I just feel as though people like to butt into business where it may not be their business.

When I say personal is personal, again, I will share when the time is right for me. But just know and I hope people respect that. It’s been difficult, I must say, reading comments online.

Majority has been super supportive, which I appreciate but, on the other side, people have been very negative. I have gotten, unfortunately, death threats and it’s scary at times because people don’t know what goes on behind closed doors and if you know me, you know how hard I work and you know how passionate I am about wrestling.

As far as her return goes, it seems the nature of it has left her as surprised as anyone:

I definitely didn’t think I was going to return, especially this quick. When everything had transpired, I kind of had to mentally soul-search, and I was really able to just dig deep and know that I really needed to focus on myself, where I’ve always, in my entire life, personally and business, put others first.