Alexa Bliss Opens Up On Her Battle With Anorexia, Earning Respect In The Locker Room, Total Divas

In an interview with the New York Post, Alexa Bliss opened up about her battle with anorexia as a teenager, earning respect in the locker room and more. Below are some of her comments.

How anorexia took over her life as a teenager:

“Oh gosh, I was a completely different person. It controls you and it consumes you in so many different ways.

“I remember my mom sitting me down and telling me I was in the hospital and she was like, ‘You are probably going to die from this’ because the doctors were telling her 1 in 4 people die from it and I was going to be that one because my body wasn’t responding. My heart wasn’t responding. Everything was just going downhill and I didn’t see it. Your brain doesn’t see it. I remember being in the hospital and not knowing why.

“I looked in the mirror and said, ‘I’m fine. I look fine’ and my mom is telling me you are going to die from this and I just literally looked at her blankly and said, ‘I don’t care.’

“It’s one of those things you don’t know who you are. You become something completely different and it consumes you entire life. It consumes everything about you.

“That is why I try to be so open about it because people going through it, it consumes them and you tell them it doesn’t have to. You can move past your eating disorder and not let it have control over your life anymore.”

How she overcame anorexia:

“I went through treatment so many times. At one point I was in rounds of five different doctors a day. That was my deal to be able to get out of the hospital, which was I had to see five different doctors every day. I literally spent every day at the doctors. I remember, you have to get better when you want to get better. I’d have phycologists and physiatrists telling me ways to try to get better. It is something you have to try to do on your own.

“I remember my friend Erin telling me she had been in the hospital with me every day. She was there when I got admitted and after I was released. She said, ‘If you think you are fat Lexi, what do you think I look like?’ And then I noticed she was starting to pick her food apart like me. She was starting to count calories like me and it just broke my heart because I never wanted to influence anyone to go through what I am going through and that’s exactly what I had done. That was the moment where I knew I needed to get better.

“It was for me and it was for people around me because it doesn’t just affect you, it affects people around you. That fact that I was literally taking my best friend and morphing her into that bad path, it wasn’t OK with me.

“My parents put me back in touch with my trainers Mike [Davies] and Natalie [Calland]. They told me I was going to compete [in body building]. I was like 80 pounds and they were like, ‘You are going to be on stage in six weeks. You can either be skinny and embarrass yourself or look healthy and do well, but regardless you are getting on stage in six weeks.’ That was kind of the kick in the butt. Their diets got me comfortable eating food again. It was a very, very long process because this was like a four or five year battle.”

How tough was it to earn the respect of the locker room in NXT or FCW when she had not wrestled before joining WWE?

“Oh god, I don’t know if I still have it now. It’s one thing coming in, not being a part of the indies stuff like that and doing well. It’s another to now be part of the indies and be champ. It’s an ongoing thing, but the girls that I work with now are amazing.

“When I came up to SmackDown I was super nervous. I never really worked with these girls before. I have to say, the group of women I was drafted with to “SmackDown Live” were the most welcoming and most amazing women I’ve ever worked with.

“We would go on tours, we would go have dinners together and hang out and everyone was so sweet. It was the most refreshing locker room I had ever been in and it is still the best locker room I’ve even been in. Just having Nikki [Bella] there we had so much fun.”

What will people see from Total Divas’ Alexa Bliss that is different from the person they see on Raw?

“Oh gosh. You probably won’t see me be mean as much. That is probably the biggest difference. I’m not nearly as mean. You get to see how the schedule affects me and Murphy and you will get to see that I get a (pet mini) pig Larry-Steve. You will see pretty much everything about Nia and I’s friendship.”

For the full interview, click here.