WWE veteran Natalya Neidhart recently opened up about the growing dialogue surrounding mental health in the wrestling industry, highlighting powerful recent moments from Randy Orton, Charlotte Flair, and Big E that have sparked change.
Appearing on Busted Open After Dark, Natalya applauded her colleagues’ willingness to show vulnerability and reflected on how their experiences resonated deeply with her own.
“You look at Randy Orton, he’s just so physically imposing… he looks like a Greek god,” Natalya said. “And then you hear him talking about depression, and anxiety, and saying like, ‘I’m waking up in the middle of the night and I can’t sleep’… it hit me like a ton of bricks.”
She praised Orton’s recent interview with Stephanie McMahon, calling it a needed moment of honesty:
“We need to have those conversations. If somebody like Randy can open up and show, ‘Hey, it’s okay to feel that way’… it makes people feel good talking about it.”
Natalya also commended Charlotte Flair for her heartfelt essay in The Players’ Tribune, where Flair candidly discussed personal trauma and her struggles with crowd perception.
“I loved her article because it was very vulnerable,” she said. “People see us as larger than life… and then you hear, ‘When the crowd was booing, I felt like they were booing me as a human’… that’s hard.”
She reflected on Eddie Guerrero, citing how even champions felt insecure.
“He would beat himself up because he’s like, ‘I’m the champion, and we should have had a sold out house.’”
Natalya also spotlighted Big E and his Players’ Tribune article, calling his honesty about past suicidal thoughts “so relatable and important.”
Natalya admitted that her early years in WWE were clouded by anxiety and a fear of backstage heat, stemming from her father Jim “The Anvil” Neidhart’s turbulent history with the company.
“When I got hired, I had this goal — I was going to be the opposite of my dad,” she said. “Whatever Vince wanted, I’d do it. If they wanted me to lose in three seconds, I’d do it. If they wanted me to pass gas, I’d do it.”
She revealed she operated under a “black cloud of fear” that she had to always please everyone or risk losing everything.
But now, Natalya says the culture has shifted — and Triple H played a role in that change. After her Bloodsport match, he gave her meaningful feedback that helped release that fear.
“You don’t have to be afraid anymore,” she said. “That fear is stopping so many people from doing more. If Steve Austin was afraid of getting heat, we might have never seen Steve Austin.”
Stay tuned to PWMania.com for more on WWE superstars using their platform to speak about mental health and for continued coverage of Nattie’s inspiring journey both inside and outside the ring.
