Why Stephanie McMahon Was Unhappy With Public AJ Lee Fallout

Stephanie McMahon has admitted she was happy that AJ Lee spoke out publicly about equal pay in the company despite being targeted by the comments.

Back in 2015, AJ Lee was on the verge of leaving WWE, but she wasn’t going quietly. Lee jumped on the fact that Stephanie McMahon went public with her views on equal pay in Hollywood, with Lee noting that things were far from equal in WWE. Taking to social media at the time, Lee wrote:

@StephMcMahon Your female wrestlers have record selling merchandise & have starred in the highest rated segment of the show several times.

@StephMcMahon And yet they receive a fraction of the wages & screen time of the majority of the male roster. #UseYourVoice

Now, AJ Lee is back in WWE, and she’s been able to address her issues with Stephanie McMahon face-to-face.

Speaking on What’s Your Story with Stephanie McMahon, AJ Lee wasted no time in getting to their very public fallout:

It’s something I feel like, in a weird way, we’re both kind of proud of, like how far we’ve come, and so, a long time ago, the women’s division was in a different spot. It felt like an uphill battle a lot of the time, and I was one of the first people fighting for it quite vocally, and I think when you are one of the first to do something, you get hurt storming the gates. It’s a little rougher, but it’s worth it because you open the path for the people who come behind you.

But there was an incident on Twitter where you had posted about equal pay. I retweeted it and said well, if we’re talking about use your voice, we don’t get equal pay, essentially, yet we’re bringing in more eyeballs than a lot of the men.

That to me felt like, I’m fairly direct, I try not to be rude. I think you can be direct but very practical, so I felt like it was coming from a practical place. It was a bit, “I ain’t got nothing to lose right now.”

Stephanie McMahon Happy AJ Lee Spoke Out

Stephanie McMahon noted that Lee was WWE Divas Champion at the time she posted the messages, so she, in fact, did have a lot to lose. McMahon continued:

The courage that it took to fight for what you believed in, and the fact that you really were a different character from any kind of stereotype. You came out of nowhere, and the audience loved you from the start. They connected with you in a special and unique way.

I appreciate your directness. I’m a direct person as well. Sometimes people think I’m rude, but I don’t mean to be. I just hate all the BS, like let’s just have the conversation. I was actually happy that you posted that. I wasn’t happy it was directed at me because it wasn’t anything I had direct control over, but I was really happy that you did.

That movement, the whole women’s evolution in WWE, didn’t happen because of executives, maybe along the way, people voicing their opinions, but it really happened because of the women who paved the way all the way back to the beginning. But then, for our audience, when they started the hashtag give divas a chance at the time, that couldn’t be ignored. And the audience would never have got behind the movement if it weren’t for people like you who speak up for women publicly and take on the machine.

Lee noted that McMahon was cool with her after the spat, and there were no issues between them stemming from it. Both women laughed as they referred to other unmentioned issues at the time, with Lee’s posts coming just weeks before her exit from WWE and with the company embroiled in a very public battle with her husband, CM Punk.

If you use any quotes from this article, please credit original source and h/t with a link back to TJR Wrestling for the transcription.