During an appearance on Chasing Glory with Lilian Garcia, Raw Superstar Paige discussed doing drugs, failing WWE’s Wellness Tests and trying to cover it up & more.
Below is Paige’s conversation with Lilian Garcia:
Paige: I tried drugs when I was 15 years old. I really wanted to be drugged. I got sober and I was like – This drug sucks, why would I do this, like this is terrible. And I didn’t do any drugs until just being like… my childhood had been kind of taken away and I got involved with some friends and it wasn’t like a good group of people to hang with.
At one point my body was just in pain and I was just working so much, wrestling so much. And then I just started drinking and I started putting on weight. Then I just had a bunch of comments from people saying like -“Paige got fat, Page got this, Paige got that” and I got in a depression with that too.
So I’m just like two middle fingers up to the world, like I don’t care right now, I’m gonna do whatever I want and I’m young, I have money, I can do this kind of stuff.
I literally had like a 2005 Britney Spears meltdown, I was so close to shaving my head. I just got wrapped up in drinking and like I wanted to drink some more, so I would do that kind of stuff. I just got so wrapped up in the party lifestyle and I just wanted to be cool.
I finally had a bunch of friends that liked me, but they don’t really like you. They’re just like ‘Oh cool, you’re spending money on us.’ So that was pretty much it. I just felt good that I felt free, that I was reliving a childhood I never had. I was hanging with people I never though I could hang with before, with all these stars that I got to meet.
Then I get in a relationship, and it was kind of an uphill battle when it came to social media. But also I had my neck, and I’d never had a day off in my life, so when my neck came along and I thought I would never be a wrestler again that put me in depression.
I just felt so alone, and I was in so much pain from my neck. I was just like, ‘This is fine. One more will be absolutely fine. I can do this. I’m not addicted to this pill.’ Which I’m not, because I completely stopped after I got humiliated online for that kind of stuff. But I made the dumb mistake, and it’s not even good. I didn’t even enjoy doing it.
I completely chose to do it and I hold my hands up in there and I say I made a mistake. That was me. That was all my fault. No one held a gun to my head. I took it and that was my fault. I was very dumb. I did the drug test and it popped and unfortunately I tried to cover up a little bit and I feel very stupid.
I was very embarrassed. Because the first one wasn’t actually from drugs. That’s just not doing it in the allotted time which is like kind of my bad, but it was a very confusing situation. I don’t know what happened, but I did the physical drug test and passed.
The second one, that was completely dumb. That was me being stupid.
Lilian: But I’m gonna say a quote that you actually posted. You literally said, “Kids, please don’t get prescriptions or doctor’s notes. Not acceptable.”
Then the WWE came back and they were like – No. It’s actually more than prescription drugs.
Paige: At that time I was just very embarrassed. I was just like okay I have to try and cover this up and I lied to my family about it too. I told them it was this and it wasn’t. I just tried to make myself not look terrible because I built myself on being this role model that you be yourself, you can do whatever you want. Not this person who is running around, doing drugs.
Obviously WWE had to cover themselves because I said something that was completely inappropriate. I was just like – What did I do! So I was never mad at WWE for doing that.
They were so fantastic with me and they definitely helped me. They’re still helping me. I get to do therapy. They’re like a big family and I never really realized that. I’ve always held a crush to everything, everyone and I don’t understand why.
They’ve always been great to me. Gave me opportunities. They gave me so much stuff which they didn’t have to do and even up until now they’ve always stuck by me and they have always been there for me when I needed them. They’re beautiful.
Lilian: Is there anybody there or even multiple people that actually took you aside and had these conversations with you and said – “What do you need, Paige? We’re here to help you. How do we get cleaned up?
Paige: Yeah. You have Mark Carrano who’s head of talent relations and stuff and he would call me now and again and stuff just to check up. He would check on me every single day like – “Hey, are you okay? You need help? You need this? You need that?” And it was always great and he got me the help that I needed.
Rosa Mendes got me in touch with a therapist from the WWE. She was very inspiring to me. She stopped drinking altogether and she’s a fantastic mom or she’s building an empire or like she really cleaned her life up and she looks fantastic.
WWE is like a big family. You don’t realize it until you step away from it and then come back and see like the real picture. I got to speak to Hunter, Vince, Stephanie. And they were all like – “We believe in you and we know you can be something. Just go show people what you can do. We’re just happy that you’re healthy and you’re back home”.
Usually I was psyching myself out before, I had to walk out the day that I made my debut and Stephanie literally came up to me and whispered in my ear, she was just like – “You are gonna be fine. You are home. This is your house.”
She is really like pumping me up and I just felt like she’s a very inspiring woman, like very empowering.
She’s definitely like just a hero, just looking at her and I’m like I want to be like her one day.
Lilian: How was the locker room when you came back?
Paige: They were good. Obviously when it comes to locker room you know there’s there’s a lot of girls up there and we are all competing to be on TV and get that timeslot. But they were all wonderful. Don’t get me wrong, but like obviously there’s still going to be that competition there which is gonna be there in any job.
So like I’m coming in, I’m getting this awesome group Absolution and we’re doing some fun things, doing some great things on TV. I mean back in the day I would have been frustrated like why is she getting that kind of stuff.
Now I’d be like oh I’m happy for you. But I could see some people kind of be in that way. They’re just like – “Whoa why is she getting like after what she did this year?”
