Former WWE Women’s and Diva’s Champion Michelle McCool has finally revealed why she left the WWE back in 2011, and it was due to her relationship with The Undertaker.
On the latest episode of Lillian Garcia’s Chasing Glory podcast, the former WWE Superstar revealed how her relationship with her now husband changed the perception of people backstage, which helped her decide to leave professional wrestling all together (transcript courtesy of
cagesideseats.com):
“So we started dating, and I knew what was gonna come with that. And so it was hard. I hid it for a long time, we hid it for a long time in the work place, for several months. He had a bus at this point, which a lot of the guys do now, I would literally wait until everybody left the building so nobody saw me get on the bus. I would do anything I possibly could to make people still see Michelle for Michelle, not for Undertaker’s, at the time, girlfriend. Which I’ve quickly learned that never goes away because now I’m just Undertaker’s wife. So, it is what it is.”
“I can literally count, on one, maybe one and a half hands, how many people treated me the same from WWE pre-Mark and post-Mark. And news flash, Michelle McCool didn’t change. I’m still me. So, there were a ton of people that now found out I was dating Mark, ‘Oh, I better change my tune and be super nice.’ And ya know, I’m not that type, I’m gonna call you for it, because I haven’t changed. I’m not acting any different. Like don’t treat me any different... I think it says more about the people that see it that way, just because I personally wouldn’t treat somebody like that. But on the bright side, it also shows you who your true friends are.”
“Leaving was tough because it got to a point where - I was dealing with so much, mostly being Undertaker’s girlfriend while I was on TV. There was even a writer who threw the papers up one day and said, ‘Why don’t we just call it the Michelle McCool and Undertaker show.’ I went to Vince [McMahon] on numerous occasions and said, ‘I don’t want to hate something that I grew up loving so much. The longer I stay, the more I get this sour taste in my mouth.”
Check out the
full interview with McCool where she talks about various moments in her career, including how she originally got into the WWE.