Rhea Ripley Wants Fans To Respect Wrestlers In Public
After stating on social media that she won’t sign anything except personal photos at airports any more, Rhea Ripley has discussed the incident which led to the decision.
In a tweet on 20th March 2023, Rhea Ripley hit back at disrespectful fans and made it clear she won’t be signing piles of merchandise at airports in the future. She included the phrase “hate me, I don’t care” and it now turns out that one incident led to enough being enough.
People need to respect that no means no!
At airports do not follow me outside. Today has put me off completely! I will not sign ANYTHING that isn’t a personal photo of us anymore.
Hate me, I don’t care.
Disagree with me, try putting yourselves in our shoes for one bloody day.— RheaRipley_WWE (@RheaRipley_WWE) March 20, 2023
In an interview with USA Network, Rhea Ripley has now discussed the tough schedule which means she is at an airport most days – and so are those waiting for her autograph.
We fly around so much and we travel so much. Right now I’m doing both brands, so I’m at the airport pretty much every single day.
So I run into fans every single day and there’s a lot of them. And when it comes to signing, some of them have piles of the same photos, of the same action figures, of the same pop vinyls, of the same cards — and they want you to sign every single one of them. And if you say, ‘Hey, I’m just going to sign one, I’ve got places to be’ — because most of the time we do, we’re running late. I was running late to work this morning because I landed so late and I’ve got to be here at a certain time, and sometimes we just can’t sign it all.
Continuing on, Rhea Ripley spoke of the specific incident which led to her posting on social media, and how she was hassled by a number of fans after saying she couldn’t sign everything she had.
It’s sort of an entitled thing when some fans expect us to just do it and they start making a fuss if we say no. So I had a fan follow me outside the airport today because I said no to them because I didn’t have the time and it was all of the same stuff they wanted signed. It was one fan specifically, he’s notorious, he’s always at the airport getting our signatures and selling them on eBay — we know his face, we know who he is.
He was the main instigator, he followed me out and others followed him too and they all followed me as I’m trying to find my Uber. So I’m trying to tell them no and they’re all being persistent and I ended up getting lost, I had no idea where my Uber was, and I ended up down the stairs away from everyone else and I’m just surrounded by these five guys and they’re just hassling me.
In conclusion, Rhea Ripley described how the actions of these fans could be seen as threatening.
I don’t think people understand how threatening that is, especially because you don’t know what’s going to happen. I don’t know these people.