Pro-wrestling star Candice Michelle was a recent guest on VOC Nation’s My Big Break podcast where the former WWE Divas champions talked about moving to Hollywood to get into entertainment, the challenges of not knowing locker room etiquette, the change in how women are presented in WWE, and more. Highlights are below.
On her journey to Hollywood:
“I was just kind of figuring out myself…weeks of auditioning, auditioning, waitressing, waitressing – I was really a professional waitress at the time – but that’s how you pave your way in this industry and that’s exactly what I was doing.”
Says the entertainment business is as cutthroat as advertised:
“It’s probably worse than you think actually. You probably think it’s a little less because you see it in the movies and you downplay it a little bit. It’s cut throat; it’s a really cut throat industry. It takes a special kind of determination. You really have to get used to being ok with rejection; you get rejected day in and day out. It’s a brutal business. Even my waitressing job – I had to give them a headshot and a resume… you have to really really love it and really want it.”
On getting the call to tryout for WWE’s Diva search:
“I had a very popular agency out here for my modeling gig… I’ll never forget this day either, it’s one of those turning points… I watched that as a kid – like religiously watched it – I grew up on it, it was what I did with my stepdad every Monday night. My Mom would be yelling at us, I had the Hulk Hogan doll, not the Barbie doll. To think that that could come full circle… for me they were really Superstars; this wasn’t a job you could train for. I had never heard of an indy scene or wrestling school. I was so into really like the dreamland and the characters and how they made you believe in your dreams… I was like heck yeah I’m interested!”
How she did not learn wrestling the traditional way, including in the locker room:
“There’s so much learning. When you go to a wrestling school, you learn that you should walk in and shake everyone’s hand. For me, coming from Hollywood, interrupting a Shawn Michaels eating his meal, that doesn’t seem respectful to me… it was always those hard moments of learning everything, every aspect of this business. When you’re new, and you’re not told those things, you can feel like a real (bad person) sometimes.”
Whether she thinks the term Diva is offensive:
“I don’t look at the Divas championship as diminishing people. I think it really comes into, ‘are these women athletes or are they just really beautiful women?’ And I think what WWE was trying to say is ‘hey they’re both.’ And that’s what we were fighting for. You can be pretty and you can be athletic. You can do both of these things.”
The full episode can be found below.
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