AJ Lee And Stephanie McMahon Reflects On Their 2015 Twitter Interaction.
The controversy began more than a decade ago when McMahon tweeted support for Patricia Arquette’s Oscars speech advocating for equal rights. Lee responded by pointing out that despite female wrestlers having high merchandise sales and rated television segments, they received a fraction of the wages and screen time compared to the men.
Appearing on Stephanie’s What’s Your Story podcast, AJ and Stephanie addressed the tweets.
AJ: “A long time ago, the women’s division was in a different spot. It felt like an uphill battle, a lot of the time. I was one of the first people really fighting for it, quite vocally. When you are the first to do something, you get hurt storming the gates. It’s a little rougher. I think it’s worth it because it opens the path for people that come behind you. There was an incident on Twitter in which you had posted about equal pay.
“I retweeted it and I was like, ‘We’re talking about Use Your Voice. We don’t get equal pay, essentially, yet we’re bringing in more eyeballs than a lot of the men.’ It was probably pretty fiesty. That to me felt fairly direct. I try not to be rude. I think a lot of people are like, ‘I have no filter,’ and that’s an excuse for being rude. I think you can be direct, but practical. I felt it was coming from a practical place, but direct. I was also a bit, ‘I ain’t got nothing to lose right now.’”
Stephanie: “You were champ, so you did have a lot to lose, but the courage that it took to fight for what you believed in. The fact that you were a different character than any type of stereotype. The audience loved you from the start. They connected with you in a special and unique way. I appreciate your directness. I’m a direct person as well. I’m sure some people think I’m rude, but I don’t mean to be. I hate all the BS. Let’s just have the conversation. In preparing for the interview, I read all the backstage gossip about what happened, and I was like, ‘I don’t remember that at the time.’ It’s so interesting because people never really know. I was actually happy that you posted that. I wasn’t happy that it was directed at me because it wasn’t anything I had direct control over, but I was really happy that you did because the whole women’s evolution in the WWE, it didn’t happen because of executives — maybe along the way, people voicing their opinions — it really happened because of the women who paved the way, all the way back to the beginning of all of these incredible women who have been inside the squared circle no matter what promotion they were in. Then, for our audience, when they started Give Divas A Chance at that time, that’s what couldn’t be ignored. The audience would never have gotten behind the movement if it weren’t for people like you, who actually stood up for women publicly and took on the machine a little bit. It was a big deal, I thought.”
AJ: “I appreciate that. Change doesn’t happen unless there is sacrifice. You have to be willing to lose everything to get what you want. Playing it safe doesn’t work. It might give you a safe life, but I don’t know if it gives you an exceptional life. I felt like that was worth it, whatever the backlash was going to be. You were cool after. Everyone was pretty chill. It was business, and I appreciate that. It was a rough time.”
Stephanie: “There were a lot of things happening at the time. I’m sure everyone can read into it however they wanted, but it was so important. It was an important public-facing step.” [H/T to Fightful for the transcription.
AJ Lee returned to WWE earlier this year on the Raw before Wrestlepalooza and went on to play a part in Maxxine Dupri defeating Becky Lynch for the Women’s Intercontinental Championship.
