Charlotte Flair recently spoke with Bloomberg Talks for an in-depth interview covering all things pro wrestling and WWE.
During the discussion, “The Queen” spoke about being as big a star as any male WWE Superstar, her recent injury hiatus and life after WWE.
Featured below are some of the highlights from the interview where she touches on these topics with her thoughts. Also embedded below is a complete audio archive of the discussion.
On being a women’s WWE Superstar in the modern age and feeling she is just as big a star as any top male WWE Superstars: “I feel the women who came before me that helped change the landscape that have been grinding for the, you know, 20-30 years before me, they probably felt it more. But when I started in a group of women that I came in with, who I champion every day, we’re not all as close as you know, success and competitiveness and competition take over and always wanting to be at the top of your business. But we were part of this change, and when Stephanie McMahon debuted us, and then there was one other girl who debuted a year later, the Four Horsewomen, that’s what we were coined as. In 2015, when Give Divas a Chance trended for three days, we were part of that rise where we were given the same amount of opportunities and time and segments as the men, and then ultimately myself, Becky Lynch, Ronda Rousey ended up main eventing WrestleMania 35 and MetLife. If you had asked someone, even maybe a year prior to that, would the women ever main event a show, they would have laughed. But what we were able to create is that women are capable of selling merchandise, putting people in seats, being top of the card, getting equal opportunities in the ring. So I just, from the day I started, I had one goal to where I am now. So do I feel things go like this? 100%. But do I think I’m as big a star as any male? Absolutely. I almost cussed, but I didn’t.”
On her recent ACL injury setback: “Definitely think when I hurt my knee, I tore my ACL. I don’t think I was in the right state of mind, meaning whether it was imposter syndrome, that dialogue, that how we talk to ourselves, that inner self-talk. I feel like I was in a very negative space and not opening up about it and the anxiety of you know, being a woman that’s approaching 40, what that looks like, the demands. I want to be able to say I’m a woman and what I want more of is time and all that pressure adding up. I feel like the reason I hurt my knee is because I wasn’t all there, performing. For someone who has, I always looked at myself as the iron woman, and when my knee took me out, I was like, all I viewed myself as a professional wrestler. Like that’s all I am, and that’s not all I am. I do have a voice and maybe this is the start of something bigger for me. Like I love being Charlotte, but taking Charlotte to the next level and making these conversations more accessible or not taboo for people in any kind of industry, I think is so important.”
On what her next steps are for life after WWE: “So that, that to me was like, whether I, you know, I mean, the ultimate goal is to make money and it is a business, but like, to me, when you don’t know what to do with it, I don’t know what my next step is after WWE, but what I do know is I want to help people. That’s why I invested in them because I know you can’t go wrong and helping create a safe space for people. I want to become the person that I needed growing up and I felt like investing in self care for everyone was like the perfect step in that and being their angel investor.”
