Andy Frasco's World Saving Podcast - CJ Perry Talks WWE, Relationships & Mental Health

Episode Date: March 24, 2026

Pro wrestler CJ Perry gets REAL—and nothing is off limits. From cocaine jokes to Adderall crashes, mental health struggles, and relationship breakdowns, this is the side of wrestling you never see. CJ opens up about life inside WWE, insane travel schedules, Vince McMahon stories, and the pressure of performing while falling apart behind the scenes. We talk addiction, identity, workaholism, and the dark side of chasing fame. Plus, wild road stories, industry secrets, and why the comedown after the spotlight can be the hardest part. This one goes deep.

Who's your favorite comeback story? Ooh, I would say probably my best friend, Liv Morgan, and she is the greatest. Tell me about it. Yeah, she just won the Royal Rumble, the Women's Royal Rumble. She's the greatest Royal Rumble winner. Yeah! And she got injured in June.

And she hurt her shoulder, and then she had to get surgery, and she returned at Survivor Series, to kick John Sina in the nuts. We don't have to both clap. It'll let me be one of us. Why not? It means we're in sync, Nick. All right.

Andy Frasca's World Saving podcast. I'm Andy Frasco. I'm J.C. Shazzae if we're in sync. And you're J.C. Sase. Hell yeah. Mario Lopez. Nope. He was not.

He was insane by the bell. What's that mean going around like everyone's 90s and they go do a 90s character? Well, it started with... Everyone has the same fucking joke now. But it started with actual child star from the 90s doing it and being like, this is me, guess who I was? And then they show, it's actual,

there's actual relevant people. I almost did it the other day. I was going to do the Olson twins. That's actually funny. Like I'm both of them. But I was like, I don't know, people might think I'm making fun of certain things. Do you think wrestling is fake, Nick? What do you mean?

Do you think wrestling the profession is fake? Well, I think it's definitely like, what do you mean by like I think it's definitely fake but I also think they're world class athletes yeah this whole idea what do you mean by fake I think I don't think anyone it's definitely scripted I don't think that's like a secret anymore no no yeah but that doesn't make them not some of the best athletes on the planet it's incredible and entertainers yeah and we have one of the greatest woman wrestlers from the w w cj perry on the show this week oh yeah pretty badass we never had a wrestler before is her first wrestler yeah nice

Have you ever seen the movie The Wrestler? I love that movie, actually, because I love Marissa Tomey with all my heart. Oh, dude. She's one of my celebrity crushes. I like Mickey Rourke. I don't, yeah. He's a great actor. He's not one of my celebrity crushes, but.

He does look like one of those P.E. teachers in the 90s. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, his face got all messed up boxing. You know that, right? Oh, I didn't know that. He, like, was a big actor, and then he quit for a long time to get into boxing, and he got all jacked up boxing, and now he's, looks like that. Oh, wow.

Kind of badass. Well, that's going to be a great interview. I can't wait for you to listen to that. Before we leave, I am going on tour of it. I have a five-day run. I'm playing this week.

Boise at the Tree Fort Music Festival. I am playing... Every year, I feel like. I haven't done Tree Fort, but I play Boise. Okay, okay. And then I'm Thursday. We're in Park City

at the Canyons community show for the city. Utah. Utah. Ski town, right? Yeah. And then I'm in Frisco. Oh, you're coming back to Colorado.

There's other shows, too. but I do a couple of Colorado shows. Got a website. That website, and Frescoe.com slash tour, grab your tickets. And we're going on tour of the kitchen dwellers.

That tour's been selling good. We've sold like 5,000 tickets in the first week. We've been touring our homies now. Isn't he cool? He wants to come on the pod. Oh, I got to get him on for the tour. And just because he's cool. I wonder if he should do him for next week for Nick and Andy.

I'm down. Let's have him come over Thursday. They might be out on tour right now, though. Really? Well, sometimes when he's around, he should come over. I'll text him. We'll talk about the tour. He lives down the road.

Man, we haven't hung out. We got to hang out this week. Yeah. We really haven't. I'm around. I try to ask you to go the game. I know. Tonight's rough, but there's also...

I just can't. I got to lay low tonight. I got to rest for the interviews. I got to research for both interviews tomorrow. I got to work. And you kind of hit it hard last night. I had a medium hard. I just got to just dial in a little tonight.

But I do have to research both interviews for tomorrow. I'll take a few hours. But who? Jefferson Airplane guy? Yeah. And then who do we have after that? They're like... Oh.

somebody I didn't know that well younger band Broke in the Bluff? You familiar? Yeah they're really good I'll check them And then who else we have Then this week we have Langhorne Slim on Thursday

Oh Langhorne Slim we're interviewing And someone in studio on Friday Oh we just got Steve Earl I know but is he coming on? He's coming on Friday I got some stuff I want to ask him about the wire Yeah the wire

He was in the wire Really? The show on Baltimore? I'll handle the wire apart All right good All right guys enjoy CJ Perry and we'll catch you next week where Nick and I will catch up for hours. Days.

We have a lot to talk about. Days, days. All right, stay on cool. Hey guys, it's Andy and I want to talk a little bit about volume.com. Yes, volume.com. Our sugar daddy, yes, our sponsor. And we are doing a only Frasco subscription for five bucks a month. We're going to have extended videos of the podcast.

You're going to have a live stream once a month of the band. You're going to have live streams of us making the new recs. So head over to volume.com slash Andy Frasco. Subscribe. It's only five bucks. I got a cup of coffee today. It was $7.50. You could just spend one cup of coffee and get all the frasco you want.

So head over to volume.com slash Andy Frasco and subscribe. Support you guys. Maybe I'll even pay Nick more. You never know. Ladies and gentlemen, big show tonight. Pro wrestler. CJ Perry, how you doing today? Oh my gosh.

I'm excited. I'm a little nervous. because you guys talk about like real shit here. I really do, yeah. So tell me about your mental health. What's going on out there in wrestling world? You see it right immediately. Not even like, hey, how are you?

Good to talk to you. Hey, what's going over with your brain, buddy? Oh my gosh. Wow. Hey, CJ, nice to meet you. Good to be here. So nice to meet you. Wait, are you sober?

Um, no, I take mushrooms and I do cocaine every now and then. I can't. I, so I was, I was prepping for this and I watched a couple of your episodes and I watched the latest one where you were, um, interviewing a band, loved it by the way. And you were just casually talking about doing cocaine. And I was like, I couldn't tell if it was a joke or not. Yeah, yeah. I'm, uh, I'm, uh, I'm, uh, I don't know. I've been in a band for 200. I've been doing 250 shows a year for the last 15 years. So I've just kind of just being honest with myself and trying not to hide from me. You know my mom listens to this. He's like, what the fuck is happening out there?

Oh my God. I can't believe your mom listens. I sent my mom my podcast about my, like, when me and my husband did an episode where we were talking about our reconciliation and coming back together. and my mom didn't even get through the whole episode of our marriage. I'm like, thanks mom for listening. By the way, go and listen to Identity Crisis. Yeah, so tell me about, yeah, how's the relationship with your parents through, you know, picking really, I mean, the parallels of your career choices

have been unbelievable. I think you're a true entertainer. I've been following you and watching you go through this whole journey of finding yourself. Like, my first question is, like, what are the, parallels between the music industry and entertaining versus the wrestling industry. Oh my gosh. It's so much similar. Are you kidding?

It's all the same, right? It's all the same. I actually say everything's pro wrestling. Now that I've worked in pro wrestling, I'm like politics is pro wrestling, singing's pro wrestling, TV's pro wrestling, Sydney Sweeney's pro wrestling, everything's pro wrestling. Everything is a work, you know? What is not a work?

I feel like similarities, the most I would compare wrestling to would be musicians, rock stars, yourself, and also comedians, because both have the relationship with the audience really, really matters. Like you have to connect to the audience and to the fans. You have to. You can't just rely on, you know, you can't just rely on studios, but also like there's just a part of the live performance that really, really matters. And when stand-ups go and perform their sets,

it's all about listening to the crowd. And I think, you know, music, great musicians, I'm sure you could probably tell me a bunch of stuff as well about connecting. Yeah, I'm not curious about, like, the traveling. What's your travel day like? Oh, my God. That's what I was getting to also. The similarities of traveling.

I mean, I used to be on the road 300 days of the year for eight years. So almost nine. So I relate to you. It's a lot. I was married, so that definitely probably helped me from becoming a whore on the road. Yeah. I would be hoeing out. I mean, I was hoeing out.

I was hoeing out my first years as like, I don't know, fame or like when people are kind of kissing your ass, I start thinking that my ass doesn't stink a little bit, you know? Right, right, right. Did anyone, like, humble you? Was there any time in your career you got humbled? I think Vince McMahon definitely did. that a lot to me for sure. And, and I don't know, I know there's a lot of stuff on the news about him and there's, you know, it's very, I want to be cautious talking about this man. Totally.

Because, you know, but, and I know especially to the victims, you know, that's, it's very heavy and my heart goes out to them. But at the same time, I, some of my hardest lessons besides my parents disciplining me as a kid has been from Vince and all in a good way, though. I remember this one time that it got leaked out that I was engaged in my husband. And we were in a very big, big storyline on TV. We were the evil Russians. And then he became the crazy, jealous of Bulgarian boyfriend. And he tried to send me back to Madarasha.

And I instantly became a good guy because I came out there with a blonde, hair blue eye, American boy and made out with him right in front of him. And it went into this crazy six-month storyline, crazy views, like over 50 million views. Our videos were doing on YouTube. And then TMZ broke that my husband and I got engaged. And Vince decided to stop that storyline right then and there. And I remember, you know, obviously being upset because you didn't you could be like, well, is this fair? Is this not fair? But then I realized, like, I had taken pictures with my husband, flaunting my ring, and I should have been more careful to protect the storyline. I should have been more careful to protect what we call Kay Fabe, which is the, you know,

not breaking the fourth wall and be a lot more protected of that. And so I realized I had to apologize to him. And a lot of people were telling me, like, why are you going to apologize? You have a right to getting engaged? And I'm like, yeah, but he's, put so much into me and to television time and he wanted me to be more protective of our characters. And so I went and I apologized to him and I said, I'm really sorry. I should have been more careful with what I was doing with taking pictures with my husband of getting engaged in this storyline. And he was like, I forgive you. And he's like, it's really important to me that people understand when they mess up and that you take

responsibility for it and you apologize and you never make that mistake again. And that was one of the greatest lessons. Yeah. I think about that too. Like you're like, oh shit. You're kind of like throwing shit to a wall to see what character sticks a little bit. And then when a character sticks and it starts blowing up, did you start freaking out? Like, oh, shit, this is going to be the character I'm going to be?

Oh, yeah. That happens all the time. Are you kidding me? What's the most embarrassing one? You're like, fuck, I wish that didn't stuck. Well, for me, I was a super evil Russian, and that was super popular. People loved me. I wore like suits and a very strong Russian accent,

and I told everyone that are stupid Americans. And people loved it. Like they hated it, but they loved to hate it. And then Vince wanted me to dance. And he threw me out and put me on this chair. And he was like, you're a pro dancer because he was obsessed with dance because he was like, it makes people happy. which I get.

And so he was like, you've got to be a dancer. And he made like me into this dancer gimmick. And the fan base was just not into it. Yeah. So like that happens. And that was on national television. Like he'll throw things out on national television. And then the stands are talking about it on Twitter.

Are you just, oh, well, have to deal with it. How long do the fans forget until like you could change your identity? They never do? Oh, my God. The fans never forget. Are you kidding me? They're still reminding me that I'm bored it in Gainesville, Florida. I know I'm boarding in a New Florida.

You're not Russian. Yeah, exactly. So when I got a question about like your relationship. Like you like because like Vince was pissed about the character, um, misidentification. Did it, right? Did it kind of affect your relationship a little bit? my real life relationship? Yeah.

No, not at all. We were very, very close. I mean, we're still our close. He's my husband. We're just best friend. So it was always like we could just lean into each other. And that got us through a lot of bullshit on the road, to be honest. Because, you know, music.

It's up and down. It's waves. You know, you might get something huge. And then it's a pullback. You have to wait another four or five months for something, another big, huge moment. And, you know, So what got us through a lot of things, got us through maybe some bad storylines and whatnot, was say we have each other.

We get to travel the world with each other and get to see the world, get to do what we love, and we're best friend, you know. So it was a blast, to be honest. Some of my best days of my life. Quick break from the interview. I want to talk about our lovely sponsor. Gardenista. Gardenista is the freshest most delicious, ready-to-serve cocktail.

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No wonder. I normally pull it out when I have those 3 a.m. parties after the bars. And it's fucking bomb. And it's kind of like a nice talking. Like you feel like I put some ice in it and it's a nice conversational piece. So you could order it at their shop, drink, gartagnosa.com. And for listeners of the World Saving Podcast, please use the code Frasco for 20 to get 20% off your first order.

That's Frasco, the word for F-O-R-20. I love this shit. I know you will too. And Jason, who runs the company, is just a great guy. That's not what he said to say. He told us to say, also my best friend Jason has a huge hog. And that's true. So grab

Cardinista and let them know Frasco and Jason's huge hog sent you. All right, goodbye. Enjoy the interview. So what about like working and having a relationship? How did you like depart mentalize

like the workspace and like the love space? That's interesting. It would be really interesting to see what my husband would say about that versus me. I'm a workaholic. So if anything, addiction,

some of my biggest addiction is being a workaholic and I've had to work a lot on that in therapy because that was a big part of like our breakup sometimes. Not that was just one thing, but he was just like you're obsessed. Like all you want to do is work, work, work, work. You're obsessed. And I'm like, yeah, you're right.

I love what I do. So that he's a lot better with boundaries and kind of like, okay, it's 8 p.m. It's time to stop working. And so I like that. Even though I get annoyed with it, I'm like, I want to keep working. I understand that balance is very important.

Yeah, I would say the balance is, it's got to be super important because like, when do we know when to stop working? Like, when do we know when life is other than work? You know, like it must be hard. I'm like that too. I work 24-7, like, especially when you're on the road, you don't have this like idea of when stopping is.

Like, how do you turn your brain off when you're in the hotel? and like the after the adrenaline. I mean, there must be crazy adrenaline getting out of that arena and like fucking kicking ass. People are going nuts. I mean, it's a very gladiator type of fucking feeling. It's kind of like being in a band.

Oh my God. It's the, how great is it, right? It's the best. I mean, well, it's addicting. Like, how do you come down? But how do you come down is my question. It's so addictive. Because I couldn't get, you know,

like, I didn't want to come down. That's like, such a feeling. It's the best feeling. I know it's very evicting. And it's a daily, not being on the road is a daily process for me

because it is really hard. I really miss it. When I was on the road, you know, you just, the crazy thing, it's different now because they don't have all the live shows.

It used to be we were five days of the week on the road. We had two televised events on Friday and Monday. And then, you know, we had Thursday, Saturday, Sunday. was just live house shows with no televised.

We're just performing in front of the crowd, you know, seven, 10,000 people. And then you make the city. You finish at 11. You get in your car. You're in Chicago. And you drive the Detroit. And in your little rental,

and you pay for your own hotel. We're independent contractors. Yeah, you just, I think the adrenaline. Well, your independent contractors? Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So you have to get to the gig. it's not like a, you're not like a traveling circus.

Like everyone has to get to the grid. Well, there's certain rules. Maybe they've changed it a little bit now, but they're still independent contractors. I believe they have to fly you anything over 300 miles. So we're always flown to TV, and then you used to have to travel to the next city. So once you get there, if it's not over 300 miles,

you're responsible for your car and your hotel. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Holy. Dude, that's old school. It's like you're a traveling base. you're a basic traveling band. Yeah.

No, it's totally, like, that's how it was regional wrestling. Before Vince McMahon bought up all the regions, and it was like, you know, southern wrestling, all these, that's just what you did. And so it was a part of tradition. Vince wanted that tradition to stay there. And that's why the house shows basically stayed up until TKO bought it. Now they just do televised, sometimes house shows. But that's the rule that we always had on the road that would be like you make the towns

after the show. You don't wait till the next day. You make the towns that night because your adrenaline's pumping, you know? Yeah. So that's the right question. Like, what made you choose this life? Were you kind of burnt out of music or how, what made you change like your path into this was what you wanted to do? Tell me that story a little bit.

I know. It's a crazy. I was in a girl group when I was 21. Yeah, I stopped that. It's fucking nuts, dude. It's so crazy. I've had many lives. I did pitch perfect. That was really fun. I think that wrestling tried to recruit me ever when I was in college.

And I really wanted to finish doing things in dance because that was my love. And I had been professional dancing since I was 10 years old. So I still wanted to be a dancer. And that around 25, I just kept on getting these auditions from WWE. And I was like, okay, let me try it. and I fell in love with it. It's the perfect storm. It's a rock star concert,

freaking action theater that resolves all conflict in the rain. And it used to have a ton of soap opera story. So I love a good soap opera. Yeah. So I became obsessed. I still love it. I'm such a big fan.

That's why I have a podcast, a wrestling podcast where we talk, get into it. And there's nothing like it. What about the misogyny? Is there a lot of misogyny in it? I mean, that's like asking, is there a lot of misogyny in music

or is there a lot of massaginy in day-to-day life? We live in a world that still has a lot of constructs. It's such bullshit. It's like, this is what I'm pissed about because you guys are, especially this masculine sport. Like, I think about, like, do you guys? I think about you guys a lot.

Like, how do you, like, put your head down and just keep going to work, but people just fucking keep on pushing you down. It's such bullshit. Yeah, I, you know, I just in life, find the silver lighting of everything. You know, you have to. Nothing in life has been promised.

Like, we're blessed to be alive and healthy. Like, I, the fact that I get to do what I love for so many years, I find myself extremely lucky and extremely thankful. We've made so much progress. in WWE. So, you know, just everything across the industry, women have made so much progress. And so that's what we have to focus on is how far we've gotten. And we're still have a lot of places more to go, but we will. You know, we used to, when I started WWE, I wanted to manage men because women were given so little time. You know, they were given two, three match, two, three minute matches.

And that's it on a three hour show. And then we had a huge divas revolution where all, all the total divas, the show on E, on Twitter, tons of our fans were like, give divas a chance, give divas a chance. And from there, we started a huge women's revolution and evolution. So thank you, Triple H, who has helped us so much. Let's fucking go, dude. Who is the biggest supporter of the divas? Definitely Triple H.

He and his wife, Stephanie McMahon. They have three daughters, and I'm so thankful for that, because you never know what type of influence that could have changed the course for all of us women. I remember 2015, Triple H and Stephanie McMahon changed the name of the women from divas to WVs superstars, just like the men. And now we don't have the Divas Championship. We have the Women's Championship. And we have equal amount of titles as men.

So we've come so far. And I, you know, yes, there's always work to be done. Yes, we always need more representation. but I'd rather focus on how far we've come and celebrate that. Yeah, Stephanie is such a bad bitch, dude. She's a baddie, dude. I'm like, I'm a fan of wrestling my whole life. You know, I was in that triple-H era, the Dgeneration X, that whole era.

And it was like, you know, I was pretty sexual that early 2000s. Oh, my God. I knew about suck it when I was fucking third grade, you know. I was like, this crazy. Oh, my God. That's iconic. I just bought a DX shirt yesterday because I'm going to wear it at Coachella. Dude, Road Dog.

Road Dog was my guy, dude. That was so fun. I love Road Dog. He's a big part. Yeah, Road Dog was a big part of my husband and my success of helping us a lot. Really? Explain that. Tell me that story.

You love your bands, don't you? You really love your bands. If you really want to love your bands and you really love your bands, I want to support them the real way, head to volume.com and subscribe. Volume.com. Yes. This is the best. live stream company in the business. Get your bands paid. You can subscribe for five bucks a month.

The shows are super quality. They have great cameras, great audio, backstage footage, extra live streams. You want to get closer to the artist too? Where you get to meet us. Like, I'm doing Monday morning motivations where we could all have coffee together and talk about how we're going to achieve and attack the week. So this is how you could support your favorite artists. Head over to volume.com and let's get personal. So when we first came on the road in 2014, you're given a producer that helps with your segment and helps, you know, give you feedback and critique. And he was our producer for pretty much that whole year. And he's so good with television. Like he's very good professional wrestler and so charismatic, but he knows TV. And so he would just

teach us so many time. Like he would come up to me and he's like, okay, you've got to hold your reaction for at least five to six seconds because the camera angle is not going to start the cut to you until second four. So like a lot. lot of things like that. You know, you can't just react, like something happens. You can't just do a big reaction like, oh my God, and then go away. You have to hold it for at least four, five, six seconds because they won't get to me until after that, like, after those four seconds. So that's why I kind of hear what you relate to about like stand up because you have to like take your beats. Like if you're playing in, if you're doing comedy in a, in a stadium, you can't push through the, the, the, the

bit. You have to kind of like, you got to slow to the bit a little bit, right? Well, that's what made John Sina so iconic. And The Rock, too, like their ability to listen to the crowd, John was so incredible. And we learned so much from working with him because he guides you the whole entire time. And one of the things as newcomers, at least I would do is often I would step on my pop, is what we call it. Step on the reaction, right?

And the reaction is still loud and I would start talking the next beat. But instead, you have to let it go all the way down and then start talking. just, you know, stand-up is very similar. There's a lot of similarities with sound and when you start talking and listening to the crowd. So I actually enrolled in stand-up class. I have my first show, March 26th. That's killer.

I mean, it's all the same, like, arc, like, how you're going to arc your monologues. Like, you have a philosophy how you arc your monologue? Well, I'm learning. I haven't got into that part yet. No, like when you're talking to the crowd, like when you're talking to the crowd,

oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like you know exactly when to rev up when you don't, one to slow down. So yeah. Well, you know in a monologue, even in a monologue, like an acting class, they tell you on a monologue you're supposed to go up, unless it's a specific choice that you go up and you reverse. So there's all, I mean, I'm not going to bore your fan base with all the technicals. No, they love this shit. We're a detailed-oriented podcast. Tell us about this.

Yeah. I mean, in acting class, that's, you know, in wrestling, they don't really teach you that. You have to have like an ability and intuition, either training or an intuition. And so I come in with some acting training. And I think that helped me a lot in the character department. And still I go to acting class. And they teach you like literally you have no matter what you have to build your monologue. You cannot go down on your monologue.

You have to build it. The only way you can not build it is you build it and then you go into a reverse. And so like that's traditional acting class that teaches you. you. So you take it everywhere. And my stand-up, there's a whole way that they teach you about how the right premises and act out and I'm loving it. I can't wait. How much improv can you do on your, when they're telling you what you're, what you need to say or kind of build the thing. How much improv can you do to do you get when you're, when you got the mic? So when I was there with and Vince was running everything, he was very particular about being hand on with everything.

everything. He had like 35 writers. He hands out. You have to be pretty much word perfect. I was doing a lot of Russian patriotic promos. So he was very like, he was writing my promos. But now I've heard it's a lot. It's fucking nuts, dude. It's crazy. So crazy. So now you're writing it now? You're writing your promos? Well, I'm not on the road right now, but like my husband, he writes his promos. I hear a lot of other people. like they kind of give you either a spot or a direction and then people they have a lot more voice now how many people are shooting from the hip oh yeah literally shooting from the hip everyone's shooting from the hip yeah tna i know a w they do a lot of their own promos or like tony con will be will say like okay here's your segment and then you do your thing how so my question is like you know i get it too like

I'm exhausted. Maybe I'm fucking hurt or something. How hard is it to turn on? Like, tell me about your brain. Like, are you good? Like, how I prepare or am I good when I'm not talking? Sometimes we're not feeling it. How do we turn on and just go into CJ Perry?

You know, like, how do you turn on? Like, what, how do you do it? I mean. I waited 20 minutes to get into the mental health of this. The mental health. Oh, my. God. Yeah, I don't even, I mean, I have a very different routine now than I did back then, just because I have gone on a crazy mental health journey. But then I would just, I mean,

I was prescribed Adderall. So that definitely always, I'm very ADHD. You know, I have 12 pages of learning disabilities. But definitely that helped me go 26 hours constantly. So, I have a crazy, crazy wellness policy. And so it's not like everyone can take Adderall or something like that. I usually really don't care that, but you have an exclusive now. And I, that was, you know, they had 10 pages of learning disabilities, so they allowed me. But, you know, and it comes with all this, even prescription stuff. It all has a downside to everything.

You know, I even, I would have to deal with crashes a lot. I know, like now I know, but then I didn't realize that. So I'll give you some mental health stuff now. So like now I don't, I didn't realize that was a crash. I thought I would feel emptiness. Like I remember my husband would be driving. It would be like 2 a.m. in the morning. And I literally have found tons of journals and note to my phone where I'm like,

I feel so empty. I feel like, is this it? Like is this like I feel really sad. I don't feel loved. And looking back, I'm like, I know that's exactly was the Adderall crash. Like, now I don't. Yeah. And that's what exactly.

You know. and I didn't know that at all back then. You know, I think it's important that we talked about these things because a lot of people don't know that. You know, you start questioning your marriage. You start questioning all these different things. And it's like, no, it's just the drugs. You're just crashing.

Yeah. And like, it's the, it's the brain of an entertainer when you're giving everything else to your audience. You don't share enough. You don't give it. You don't share enough for yourself. Like, this is what we forget when we're trying, when we're workaholics is just saved that 10%.

So when you're on that 2 a.m. drive, you don't feel like you're a piece of shit, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, totally, totally, totally. What was the hardest breakdown that you ever had in your career? Like, any time in your, do you remember the moment where you're just kind of like,

man, fuck all this? Oh, yeah. I mean, I definitely feel like, for me, the hardest came after WW, and after AEW because I was, I was like an adrenaline junkie for our job, you know? Right. And I love it so much.

And then, you know, still being prescribed Adderall at the time. Now I don't take it. And my life, my quality of life is, I'm so much happier. I don't feel those crashes. It's sometimes harder to focus,

but the, my life, the quality of life is so much happier. And so that was probably about a year and a half ago was my biggest crash. Like I was really depressed. It was in the middle of my divorce. We were getting divorced at the time.

And I was just really depressed. I couldn't get out of my bed. And I was still taking Adderall's, making it worse. And so that's like a horrible feeling when you're like, your medication doesn't even work. And I really hit rock bottom. Yeah. And I just had the, I had to dig deep and get myself out of my own hole.

You know, like looking in retrospect, too, do you think the Adderall kind of was some of the side effects? of the divorce. Like, Oh, for sure. You know? Like, your come downs were so bad,

you couldn't even share any fucking love with someone. It must have been tough. Yeah, it was really tough. I'm very thankful. I'm sorry for that. Yeah, thank you. I think it's those things,

though, like while my husband and I both chose like the work on the marriagee, because both of us had our own shit going on and we're like, okay, let's stop our own shit and kind of like dial in. before we like really try to permanently uproot our life, you know?

And it really made a difference. Like when we both just got rid of all this extra shit, we're like, oh yeah, we do like being around each other. Or like, you know, or like having the intention that you have towards your career towards keeping a relationship. Absolutely. Yeah. We forget that.

We're like, oh, because we're so intented about our thing. We forget, we think that that other thing is just going to, grow by itself, you know? Right, right. It's not. It's not. We got to give time. I mean, this is the first time I'm like actually going to have a relationship and I'm like, oh, good. I'm like communicate. I mean, oh, you want some hot goss? CJ? I'll give some hot goss. I never had, I never had a relationship before. I was just having one night stands because I thought it was easier to be on the road and just like, you know, fuck my way through sadness. And I felt, you know, and like it was, I thought it was easier.

but I didn't realize it was depleting me like the Adderall was depleting you. And like, oh yeah, for sure. You know, it's, oh my God. We are the 1% that travel every day and we don't, we have to make home wherever our home is, you know. Do you feel that way too? Oh my God. I totally get that. Like, I totally understand that.

And a therapist a while ago talked to me, he, he was, it was my psychiatrist. And he's like, I need you to read a book. I forgot what the book was, but ADHD people have like 50% more divorce than people that are not ADHD. And higher and suicide, depression, harder to keep a job. And when I really dialed in on, like, I get distracted, you know, and it's like constantly like, you know, I want my new toy. And that can get, you know, really hard at times. But I realize, like I've got, how do you, it is really tough. It's not even could be.

It's like, put yourself in someone else, people would break down. You're just strong and you fucking suppress the feeling, you know? And so, oh my God, I suppressed so many feelings. It's, I don't know, you can really do it. You can really just be like, I mean, I guess you get it, cocaine a little bit. Yeah, I used to love, but, you know, I didn't start knowing myself and so I started taking psychedelics. Really, like mushrooms. That's awesome.

Or like. Oh, sick. That's amazing. The speed doesn't help you. with finding yourself. The speed, the Adderalls, the cocaine, it just makes you not feel, you feel the numbness so you can keep going.

It's so true. Like, who's your favorite comeback story? Ooh, I would say probably my best friend, Liv Morgan, and she is the greatest. Tell me about it. Yeah, she just won the Royal Rumble, the Women's Royal Rumble. She's the greatest Royal Rumble winner.

Yes! And she got injured in June. And she hurt her shoulder. And then she had to get surgery. And she returned at Survivor Series to kick John Cena in the nuts. And so that was pretty awesome return. You know, John Cena was one of his last matches. She got to be a part of it.

And then she's been killing it and crushing it ever since her return. And now she just won the Royal Rumble and she's going to headline WrestleMania. Yeah. That's awesome. I mean, like, and she's your friend. You guys are supporting each other. Like, is it competitive between wrestlers or is it like everyone kind of has each other's backs? I would say it's very competitive. Like, of course, there's people that you're rooting for and you're happy for, of course. But when you're in it, like, for me, it's very different right now because I can watch everyone and I'm like, you can talk about all my podcast and root. But when you're in it, especially if you're a competitive person, I feel like, of course, you're rooting for your friends, but you also want to have that spot, you know?

That's my opinion on that. But I don't know. I guess every person's different, but I feel like you want that number one spot. Totally. I would too. I mean, it is, you know, like people say like, oh, music isn't competitive. You are fucking lying to yourself. You want to be that.

You want to be that top fucking headliner. You want that shit. I mean, we're competitive a little bit, you know? Yeah. You kind of have to be a little competitive to be art because you're not going to make it. Yeah. Yeah. I think you have to be.

Like I agree with you. You have to be. I mean, remember Michael Jordan and Kobe in their rivalry? Kobe. He's got a tattoo of Kobe on my arm, dude. Kobe, oh my God. I'm from L.A. That was my hero, you know.

Yeah, I love Kobe. And they needed that competition. really Sting was my guy The singer You're seeing the wrestler The wrestler No way

Say dude how he Re-identified himself And re-identified himself And just like And then became the coolest dude I'm like I respect that And like that's artists

That's like the same shit David Bowie did That's the same shit These guys They reinvent themselves If it's not working You're like You kind of have to do that right

In wrestling It's so true. You have to. You constantly have to be reinventing yourself. My husband just came back from AW to WW. He just debuted about 10 months ago. So, you know, he's he's in the process. Was that a nice feeling for him? Oh, yes. Yeah, yeah. He was so excited to come back to WWBE. He loves, I mean, both companies are great companies and provide great jobs for professional wrestlers. But he was glad to come home. is can you're an insider on this I love that Mickey Rourke movie The Wrestler and how to see the

you know the fading star of the wrestler and how they you know to keep it going and it felt really sad some of these guys but they still love the dream it's kind of like a minor league baseball player is it is it you know is it

you see these guys like who I love like mankind or, you know. Yeah. Oh, my God. He's amazing. He's all fucked up. He's hurt and stuff.

And just you feel bad for him getting in the ring and doing the thing. But you know, he's so passionate about it. Has there been a moment where you've been so hurt and like, you still had to fucking get out there and get in the ring and whoop some ass? Oh, my gosh. Yes. I have my Carrie Strugg story for you. Give it to me, please.

I need it. Yes. Yes. So I, this is 2020. in the pandemic, Thunderdome. So we're one of the few places that didn't get closed down during the pandemic,

and we have all these screens behind us because we're in the Thunderdome, right? People are zooming in and watch it, yeah. And I'm in this really big storyline against Naya Jacks. And she is, at the time, she was like a 300-pound Samoan dragon. I mean, I'm talking about six foot, six-one,

the Rock's cousin, super powerful. And we're in a big storyline. She had put me through nine tables at the time already. Yes, commentary tables. No one's done that in history. I'm the only person in history that has gone through nine commentary tables. How did you not get hurt?

Nine weeks. Oh, my God. So it happened nine weeks in a row, she would drop me. And the following day, I would always, I literally would feel like a train hit me. I would, it would be hard to get out of the car, hard of the get out of the airplane it was crazy so one of our one of our matches before she injured me off uh because part of the storyline was she was going to injure me off enter my leg off

i just had like twisted my ankle i came down from a move and i twisted my ankle and i had to get through the match and then she locks up me up and snatches me down i feel an extra pop and i was so determined to get through it i was like i'm in a channel i literally was thinking in my I'm going to channel 1996. Carrie Strugg when she did the flip off the vault and went in. And that's what I did. I made it up to the third rope because I was supposed to win the match too. So I went up to the third rope and I managed to win the match.

A miracle. But like what also was crazy? That's fucking badass. I'm clapping for that. Oh my God. But what's also crazy is you're knocking the adrenaline from the crowd because it was COVID. So how did you like, how did you like? How did you deal with that?

That's not fucking mind game, dude. You're playing fantastic your mind. Oh my gosh. I just, I guess my resiliency and determination. I wanted to win that match. I don't have a big winning streak. I was always the girl that would get my ass whoop. And so I was like, oh, no, I'm fucking finishing this match.

And I'm like, everything I'm doing, I'm limping. And people think I'm just selling really good. I'm selling the moves. I'm just like limping through the match. And they didn't know until I got back that I got hurt. They thought I was just selling the whole time. And by the way, yes, that was a hard time. Without the fans there, that was the most brutal time.

That's what I'm thinking. Like, you guys thrive on the energy from the crowd. Like, I was singing, like, how do you, like, get into character? You're basically playing, it feels like it's a, it's like a dress rehearsal. Yeah. Before we went into the Thunderdome, because at least that was life, TV, even though they weren't there. Before we were working in the Performance Center in Orlando, and Vince, we would just record it all day, like Smackdown and Raw. We would do actually every other

week, so we would do four shows, two Smackdowns and two Raws. And Vince would just change it. He would be full on Steven Spielberg. And he would be like, stop. That wasn't good enough. We're redo. And it would be full matches, not just pre-tates, he would make us redo. Because he's like, no, no, no, I need you to like look that way and, you know, be a little bit more vulnerable when you save that life. I'm dead ass. I'm dead serious. I mean, he should probably, it probably gotten to be a better director through those COVID years because it's not like, you can kind of like stop and like take your time with the art instead of like when you're live, live, you know, in front of a crowd. Oh, no, he used to be live live. He started to overthink everything. It's like,

it's fine. It's fine. How is Triple H's way of running the business versus Vince's way of running the business? What are the different philosophies they both have? Well, I haven't worked for Triple H since Vince left. So, you know, I would be just talking out of like things I see and observe versus literal. I think there's a lot less micro,

managing is what I would say is what I see is like Vince Vince was you know even with what I see talent allowed to do and my husband allowed to do and my friends allowed to do it just seems like a lot more you know they want not that Vince didn't want people to thrive but he wanted to approve everything like I was very lucky Vince approved a lot of the things I would present to him but I noticed that some people didn't get the same type of situation. What was Shane McMahon like? Oh, he was always wonderful. I met him in 2017. He seems like a good guy.

He seems like a nice guy. Yeah. Yeah, he was always so nice to me, always so pleasant. I worked when he was general manager on SmackDown when I was there as well. And he's awesome. He's great. Stephanie McMahon, are great. And he was the best actor out of all the kids, I thought. You don't have to answer that. I was just my own comment.

No, he's a great. He's a great actor. I think Stephanie and Shane are great. I think they're both great actors. Yeah, Stephanie was dope. I was really actually happy when actually they both fell in love, actually fell in love, you know? Like, it made me happy that they both had each other. That's kind of, that's special. Quick break from the interview.

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He told us to say, also my best friend Jason has a huge hog. And that's true. So grab Cardinista and let them know Frasco and Jason's huge hog sent you. Mm-hmm. All right, goodbye. Enjoy the interview. How do people not get addicted to like pain pills and shit in WWE? Yeah, well, I think during my time, we had a very, very strict wellness policy.

So you couldn't even smoke weed when I was there. You were fined. Oh, no shit. Yeah, yeah, yeah, very strict. Very, very strict. We would get fined $2,500 if you smoke weed. So, yeah. So you just, you couldn't, there was no.

What about like cocaine? What were the, what were the points about cocaine? Oh, no, no. Oh, no. You get, you get, um, if you pop for cocaine, you get suspended for 30 days. And then you have a second chance that you could get suspended in by the third time you're fired. But I don't even know, like it might even be stricter now. Yeah. It's got to be stricter now.

I mean. Yeah. But then you look at like macho man, Randy Savage. That dude looked like he was ripping cocaine, you know. Oh, yeah. That's the reason why they are so strict is because there are so many people that passed away from Randy Savage's generation.

Oh, no. I didn't think about that. Yeah, you're probably right. Like Randy Savage, you know, he, probably his heart, I think he had a heart attack and it could have been from all the years of, you know, all the different drugs. What was the sad as death,

do you think that's happened in the industry? I mean, they're all very, very sad. Anytime anyone passes. Or the one that was just so, just like, wow, that shock. Like it changed. It rippled a different way of... For me, personally, it was when Bray Wyatt

passed in 2023. I knew him, you know, I was, he was a friend of mine. He was always so, so, so kind to me and helped me so much. So that was really, really hard. And one of my very, very close friends is his wife as well.

And they have two kids together. So that was really felt. you know and he was we haven't had a we haven't had such a young loss in wrestling in a while like that what what did you actually brodie too um brodie who yeah that was so sad that was 20 20 and that was another one that was really really hard what what did that teach you about death and your own immortality um gosh it's we're not here forever i mean we know that but really it's really um you know just take a everything day. Don't take any day for granted. Like love people, forgive, be kind, and make the most of everything.

Yeah. I mean, with that being said, you know, I'll leave this with this last question. By the way, see, this has been amazing. Oh, yay. You're really sweet. And like, thank you for being so vulnerable. I really appreciate it. You know, you talk about. You're amazing. This is awesome. And talk about this, you know, it's never known what's your last day. You know, and it's all said, what do you want to be remembered by? Oh, man. That's a good one. That's a really good one. I'm not going to get emotional here.

I definitely want to be remembered for a person that was kind and really loved people. And is there for her friends, is there for people and my family. It's interesting. the same therapist that I told you about that about 10 years ago told me this book about ADHD, he asked me the same question. And he said, what do you want to be remembered by? And I shared with him, I was a workaholic. And I told him the same thing.

And he looked at me and he's like, okay, well, with how you're living your life and what you want to be remembered by is not the same thing. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I knew it too. I was like, you're right.

I'm not living that life now. And so I've taken the last couple years, you know, really try to prioritize being there for my friends, even if it's no work exchange. Because it would be like, oh, I want to go spend time with my work friend versus just like be there for people and help

and live a life, a service and kindness and love. And really try to be forgiving and empathetic because we really need a lot more empathy in this world right now. I agree. And with that being, said, are you there for yourself too?

Thank you for that. You know, I'm working on that. I've been in therapy for the last year. And I would say overall, I'm the happiest I've ever, like more at peace with everything in life. And I'm just trying to constantly remind myself to be kind than myself, you know? You got to. Because you're a bad, too, you know?

Oh, thank you. We could be there for everyone else, our husbands, our career. but let's also like take a step back and try to be there for ourselves, you know? Yeah, that's so true. Thank you for that. Yeah. No problem. Yeah, you're right. I hope you, yeah, go out there and go kick some ass for yourself too.

Go get some ice cream if you want. Go out there, buy some new denim, whatever, you know, do you think? I'm out in Mexico. I bought myself a hotel. I'm like, what the fuck am I doing? That's awesome. I love it. This was so wonderful.

Yeah, it's been great. Okay, I swear, I won't. be a Yenta anymore, but I got one more question. Do you have any like regrets? Like did you ever like step on someone's toes or just to make it to the top? Like do you have anything like you kind of look back on it's like damn I wish I would have approached that a little differently? Yeah, I just think that I now like not crashing out as much. I just would have a little crash out moments. You know, like my husband one time said this to me. He goes, this is a while ago when we were having issues. He's like, everything is life or death to you. And that's how it was. It would be like my makeup

wasn't good enough and it would be like I would crash out on it. You know? And it's like, who cares? You know, or like I didn't, I didn't look skinny up and I didn't like my outfits. I take it out of the stylist. And it's just like, you know, now looking back, I'm just like, Oh, God. So many crash outs I would kind of avoided with. Well, you know, what do you expect? You're kind of like going, there's a lot of pressure on you. Yeah.

Yeah, totally. And you couldn't, you know, we couldn't put it on ourselves. We had to put a little bit of that energy on something else that. Yeah. I hear that. But for you to like look back and, you know, that's cool. You know, it's like we're growing. We're getting older, man.

We just got to just grow up a little bit. And when we're kids. It's, we forget that there's other people in our surroundings too. Yeah. And also I just have learned, Natty actually told me this. Natalia Ninehart told me this. She was like, you know, people are not going to remember the titles you win. People are not going to remember your storylines.

But people are going to remember how you make them feel. They're going to remember how you make them feel when you're out there, but also how you're backstage. And that really, really stuck to me. And it's like, yeah, the makeup artists are going to remember how you made them feel. Not how like greatest red carpets you did with them, but like how you treated them on that early Tuesday morning, you know, or how you treated them when the internet was dragging you through the mud, like still be kind, you know? And I think the industry as a whole is shifting because

there was an old school type of mentality that you yell at people at the workplace and, you know, hopefully you get a better response. But I just feel like there's a lot more, we can get a lot further all together if we're kinder to each other. And we learn how to communicate in a more loving, kind way to each other. You say that about the WWE is just amazing. Because it is.

You have to. Like there's only one person. You guys are traveling together. Like make the whole experience nice. Like make it sweet. And then also go into character and be a killer. You know, like we can have both. We don't have, you know, like we don't have to

Daniel Day Lewis our life, you know. I love that. You know, we could also be sweet and turn on into this fucking raging fucking badass. Like, let's have a little bit of everything in life. All right, CJ, go out there, go kick some ass, bud. You got a podcast. Tell me about what's going on right now in CJ World.

I have two podcasts, actually. I have one that's called Inside the Ring on TMZ, and we really dive into like current storylines. We bring in people from W. WWE, A-E, A-W, TNA, Ring of Honor, people on television and interview them. Super fun. It's, you know, a little spicy because it's CMZ. I love it.

Yeah, yeah. And then... I love juicy, huh? You get the hot gossip. Yes, yeah. Yes, I love some hot gossip. Yes. And then I have my own podcast that's called Identity Crisis because I've had a lot of different

identities. And I just love to talk, like, it's very similar to this, getting real of who's behind the persona, of what's their journey. what's, you know, maybe some identity crises they've had in their life, some crash out moments and just sharing and talking. Very similar to this. That's why we're doing this. Yeah, well, keep finding, keep getting all that great stuff out of these people that we've admired forever, but also keep finding deeper and deeper into yourself because you deserve it too. Thank you. Oh, thank you. I appreciate this. This was so fun. Thank you. Well, have a great day

and, or a night or whatever you're doing, wherever you are. And we'll...