Paige on her leaked sex tape: “I did suffer a lot”

In an interview with Fox News, Paige spoke about her sex tape that leaked a couple of years ago and revealed that she was so upset it gave her anorexia and her hair fell out. Here are highlights:

On how she reacted to the sex tape leak: “Obviously, it’s very hard to stay positive when you have something that’s so publicly humiliating to yourself and then still to this day, this was over two years ago now. I did suffer a lot. I did. Just emotionally because at the time I was having my neck surgery too, and I had stress-induced anorexia. I lost all my hair. I had some really horrible thoughts. I had to go to therapy. It took me a while to get over because obviously, no woman wants to go through that. But at the same time, I was like, “OK I can’t change this.” Same with me not being able to wrestle. I can’t change this. There’s nothing I can do about it. So why am I still dwelling on it? It happened. People have seen it. Like I can use this to help others now, you know? And it really does because I don’t look at it as a mistake. Everyone’s done that kind of stuff and it happened a long time ago when I was young and dumb and stuff happens and then you know, unfortunately it was released but I’m just like, “Hey, it is what it is. I can’t change it.” And so now I’m going with the Bella Twins and we went to a woman’s hostel place, with kids and stuff, like I get to go talk to kids about it, I’m just like, “Hey, like never do something when it comes to your phones.” Because like this is a different world nowadays. Like things come out and things happen so I was like, “You have to think twice before you make the same kind of mistake as I did.” So now I get to use it and utilize it on a different platform and help others with it. So I’m like it’s a horrible thing that happened, but now it’s a tool to help the next generation of people you know?”

On overcoming depression and getting help: “Honestly, you surround yourself with toxic people, then that doesn’t really help either. So what I did because I remember walking through a supermarket and I was, I looked terrible because you know I was, I unfortunately did, I’m very open about this and I love to talk about it just because again it helps others — but I was, I unfortunately, popped the drug test in WWE because I was just going through a bad stage in my life and I was just so depressed that I just turned to something else you know? And I remember going through a supermarket and I looked terrible. Like I had no makeup on. My hair was matted and falling out and I was really skinny. Like extremely skinny to the point where like you could see that I was very sick. But there was a little girl that came up to me and she looked at me like I was just the queen of everything because she doesn’t go on social media. She doesn’t understand it yet but she’s looking up at me, and she was like, “Paige I want to be like you one day.” And I was like, “What the hell am I doing?” For some reason like you’re in this bubble and then you just like click out of it and you’re just like, “What the hell am I doing?”

I didn’t listen to my family, my friends. My work was trying to help me, constantly trying to reach out, and I completely just blocked it all out because I was in such a bad place, and this little girl just managed to make me snap out of it. I was like, “Wow I’m a role model and what I’m doing right now is not very role model-esque.” So I was like I want to have this little girl look at me in the future and be like, “Wow, look what she overcame. Not what overcame her.” So I was just like OK. After that I was like, “I need to get my life together.” So I did. I reached out to WWE and they gave me all the help that I needed when it came to therapy with everything you know emotionally and substance and everything — they helped me and that was like a few years ago. So now I feel like I’m stronger than ever. And yeah. It was all thanks to that little girl just looking at me and just being like, “You’re it for me. Please don’t mess up your life.” So yeah, it’s the fans man who did it. They did it. Yeah, a couple of years later here we are! Getting the movie out there! Feeling healthy and happy!”

On retiring from wrestling: “Yeah, so I sustained an injury. It’s just wear-and-tear from wrestling for so long, and since I was so young, so it happened. And so I end up having surgery, having three screws put in my neck, and then I came back after a year and I just tried to do stuff that I wasn’t able to do anymore and I didn’t realize that until obviously after the fact. So I end up getting an injury into my neck again and then, unfortunately, I had to retire for injuries so I don’t get paralyzed. But it’s all looking up! Because WWE was just like, “Yeah but we want to keep you around! You can’t get out of here that easy.” So they ended let me do the general manager role which was so fun, and then they ended up giving me the opportunity to be a manager for two female Superstars Kairi Sane and Asuka. So I’m enjoying life. New chapter.”