Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I love Daniel Bryan. He's such a sweetheart.
I'm the first-ever openly gay female in the WWE.
I had so much fun in the 'Tough Enough' barracks.
It's important to not have my sexuality define me.
I have a theory that confidence comes from self-worth.
My personal life is a big part of who my character is.
I love every minute of being inside that squared circle.
I grew up riding quads, shooting guns and playing sports.
I've always been athletic my entire life and loved sports.
When I was 14 years old, I said, 'Mom, I want to fight MMA.'
I really want to utilize my MMA knowledge in my WWE performance.
From a very early age, I realized why I was put on this planet: to fight.
Everything is social media nowadays, everything is sports and entertainment.
I didn't want it to feel like I was shoving my sexuality down people's throats.
Spreading the positivity is just as important as telling the difficult stories.
I'm an athlete. I'm a performer. Why the hell did I never think of combining the two?
Don't be afraid. Don't be ashamed. Don't ever apologize for your sexuality. Just be you.
My MMA background, I think, only enhances my experience on 'Tough Enough' or in the WWE in general.
I've never dealt with really anything negative in the WWE as a whole, in the locker room, anything.
I am an entertainer and I am an athlete, and WWE is the biggest performance-based show in the world.
You can call WWE whatever you want, but at the end of the day, it's a fight and fighting is my specialty.
Equality for all is what we should all want, between race, religion, gender, sexuality... it doesn't matter.
I love being able to share my story to help others relate or cope with their own stuff they have going on at home.
It's insane how many fans I have from the LGBTQ+ community. I would say the majority of my fanbase are young, gay women.
I think no matter what your job title or role in life is, it's important to just take pride in what you do and do it well.
With any minority group, it takes a strong presence in the public eye to make a change because everything nowadays is social media.
I think WWE superstars and Divas are here to change lives. That's why they do what they do. They want to make an impact on the world.
I was afraid of Sonya being defined by her sexuality because that's not fair to her. I don't want Sonya to be defined by who she loves.
What attracted me to wrestling was the entertainment factor. I loved watching how into the show the fans get, and also how physical it is.
Acting has been a passion of mine since I was young, I took acting classes through most of high school and years following while training MMA.
Being a part of the LGBTQ community myself, it's another passion of mine to let my fan base know that I represent another demographic in the WWE.
It's not a good feeling to hide a huge part of your life. If you were meant to be somebody else, you'd be somebody else, so don't change who you are.
Being a part of the WWE, I am blessed to have a platform both on social media and TV, with that platform I am able to spread my message and share my story.
To force something that was not organic to who I am was tough on me, and so I can relate to all those girls and guys out there going through the same thing.
I realized - and I think I learned this at a young age - that anything that's worth anything, you're going to take a risk to get there and it's not going to be easy.
Sonya Deville was originally supposed to be NJ Deville to help me keep my MMA nickname of 'The Jersey Devil' after debating back and forth we agreed on Sonya Deville.
I want the women's division to have that legitimacy, I want it to have that intensity and the aggressiveness, and I feel like that's where I personally can contribute.
You can be happy with work, you can be happy in other facets of life, but if you're not happy in your personal life, and you're not loving open and honestly, it sucks.
My friend's mom said to me, 'honey, I think you're gay.' And I go, 'yeah, I am.' As soon as someone vocalized it to me, gave me permission. I was like, 'yes, yes, yeah!'
Until I came out publicly, I wasn't really living my fullest life. I was trying to be who I thought I was supposed to be, which never turns out good, and I wasn't fulfilled.
I think the ability and the knowledge to be able to defend yourself builds confidence. Also there's great gratification in the sweat and work you get from any combat training.
Even prior to WWE, when I was bartending and training MMA, I always had a sense of fulfillment because although not my dream job, I took pride in being the best bartender I could be.
My first time being inside the Performance Center was for the WWE Tough Enough tryouts, and although I knew hardly anything about sports-entertainment, I knew I wanted to be a part of this place.
I've had tattoos since I was like 16, but if you would have asked the younger me to get a tattoo that symbolized my sexuality, I would have told you no, because that's how not okay I used to be with it.
I do feel pressure, but I put it on myself because I want to represent the LGBTQ community in a place where they've never really been represented that much, being the WWE and professional wrestling in general.
Everyone has contributed to the Women's Evolution in their own way, and I hope that my message can just be it's okay to not look like the rest, it's okay to not fit in, it's okay to be yourself and be different.
Being a lifelong athlete, I am a firm believer that I am who I am today because of sports. Not only did it give me structure and a solid foundation, but it gave me a sense of failure and how to overcome failure.
Sonya is the way she is for a reason and I love enlightening the fans on what those things are because so many people are going through similar experiences and have amazing stories I love to hear and relate to myself.
My goal in talking about my sexuality publicly is just so that a scared little girl or little boy can see me do it and think, 'wow, if she did it, then maybe it's OK that I do it.' It's to encourage people to be themselves.
In sports, you deal with disappointment often, but it's how you handle it and come back from it that shapes you. All these lessons are transferable to life and have really helped me with the adversities I've had to deal with in life.