Former WWE Divas Champion Kelly Kelly has opened up about her 2012 WWE release, admitting she wasn’t surprised when the company called to let her go.
Speaking with Chris Van Vliet on the Insight podcast, Kelly (real name Barbie Blank Coba) explained that while her exit shocked fans at the time, she personally saw it coming.
“I know I got a call on my off day, yeah,” Kelly said. “I was like, I get it. I feel like I kind of have been slacking off too. And they were like, ‘Look, we know you want to do other things, go do them. We want to see you happy. We can tell you’re not very happy here right now.’”
Kelly admitted that her shift in priorities came as she entered a new relationship outside of wrestling. “I was happy not being on the road because I was seeing somebody,” she said. “So I was like, ‘Okay, I want to put time and effort into this.’”
Debuting in WWE at just 19 years old, Kelly spent her formative adult years in the company. Looking back, she compared her time in WWE to a college experience. “In your 20s, I was so young when I started that. I was 19, right? So I grew up in front of the WWE. I feel like my college experiences would have been in the WWE,” she explained.
She continued, “I grew so much at such a young age. I saw the world. I got to do so many things. I was just so lucky and blessed to be able to do that. By the time I was about 25 or 26, it was like, ‘Okay, let’s see what else is out there and explore.’”
Kelly recalled her final televised singles bout, a surprise return against Eve Torres after recovering from a neck injury. “They called me and they were like, ‘Are you ready to come back?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah.’ And they were like, ‘We want you to be a surprise.’ So they didn’t announce me, and I had my match with Eve, and I think that was it,” she said.
Her final WWE match overall came against Natalya at a live event.
Since leaving WWE in September 2012, Kelly has made sporadic returns, including appearances in multiple Women’s Royal Rumble matches. She also addressed her absence from the recent Evolution 2 premium live event, clarifying that it was due to family commitments rather than any issue with WWE.
The full interview with Kelly Kelly is available below.
