Dawn Marie reached an unexpected place with a painful chapter of her career: gratitude, but not forgiveness.
Speaking with David Otunga, Dawn explained that returning to WWE recently and revisiting her “Dawn Marie” persona brought up complicated emotions she’d spent years avoiding.
Making the actual appearance, however, gave her closure she didn’t know she still needed. She described leaving the arena feeling lighter, free of the self-doubt and heaviness she’d carried, finally able to put a proper ending on a career that had been cut short rather than concluded on her own terms.
I loved it. But I loved it so much that it made me sad, but I also hated it so much because it was bringing back things that I just pushed away that I didn’t want to deal with.”
“It was exactly what I needed to heal. I felt when I left that arena—I felt like new. That heaviness was gone. That self-doubt, that question, that this—that personal and professional, right? It was just gone.
That closure led her to a conclusion she likely couldn’t have imagined years ago that she’s genuinely grateful she was fired, even though she still believes what happened to her was wrong.
Like, it allowed me to be able to put the period at the end of my career that most do not ever get a chance to do.
Dawn says she was the first woman under that kind of WWE contract to get pregnant, and that she never worked another date for the company after telling them the news — she was kept off television for a stretch before eventually being told there was nothing for her, and WWE reportedly even tried to pull her from an ECW reunion before her lawyers intervened.
No, thank you, because you gave me the period at the end of my career that I needed and didn’t even know it. Like, I’m very grateful, you know? And so, yeah, it was awesome. It was awesome. I feel like it was able to close that door, you know? I was able to really, even though it was in my rearview mirror, I was able to say, ‘Okay,’ with peace.
Looking back, Dawn believes that if she’d stayed with the company at that time, she would have tried to juggle wrestling alongside motherhood rather than fully experiencing the stable family life she’d never had growing up — she has said she was homeless at 17 and living out of her car.
It makes me smile, you know, and I’ll be honest with you, like, after that happening I was honestly able to say, like, I’m grateful I got fired.”
“I was homeless at 17. I lived in my car. I never really had family. I never had that unit. I never had—it was never easy, you know? I come from the street, okay? I fell through the school system.
Losing her spot in WWE, painful as it was, is what ultimately gave her the space to build that life for herself and her children.
And I would have never been able to really experience and enjoy family and my children. So, I was able to experience, like, home and, you know, creating a home, having my children, having stability and, like, unconditional love in my life.
